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five, but remarkably well built; is populous for its fize, mercantile, and delightfully
fituated; for nature feems to have been peculiarly favourable in difperling its natural
beauties to render it a moft defirable fpot.
The country, which has all the appearance of a well cultivated garden, is watered by
the Rhone, the iloubion, and the Jabron.
This town is noted in hiftory as having had feveral councils held there in the thirteenth
century; as alfo from being one of the firft which adopted the doitrine of Calvin.
The city of Vaiencia, or Civitas Valentinonim, is likewife on the fame road. It was
formerly the capital of a imall duchy, but prior to the revolution had become for upwards
of a century part of Dauphiny, and is now included in the department of Drome.
This city, which can boaft of great antiquity, is feated on the confluence of two large
rivers, the Rhone and the Ifere. It is populous, and had originally a biihop's fee, an
univerlity, and a military fchool, built by Lewis the Eleventli, anno 1553. It is alfo
fecorded in hiftory for its councils held in 374, 584, and 856.
From this town to Vienne the road becomes mountainous, but far from unpleafant;
for, inftead of the olive tree, which grows in fuch luxuriance in moft of the other
fouthem provinces of France, we here find vineyards, interfperfed with a variety of fruit
trees, fuch as apple, pear, miolberry, &c.
Vienne, anciently called, as before mentioned, Vienna Allobrogum, was certainly a
Roman colony, which the ancients fpared no pains nor expence to embelliih. It is ftill a
large town, and agreeably fituated among a number of mountains and fertile hills on the
banks of the Rhone.
It has alfo been the capital of a fmall ftate, which exifted in the middle of the fifteenth
centurj', whofe fovereigns bore the title of Dauphin of the Viennois, till the union of
Dauphiny to France, at which time it was annexed to that kingdom, and as fuch has
remained ever fince.
This city is doubtiefs one of the moft ancient of Gallia Narbonenfis, and was much
more confiderable than at prefent. It is now but indifFerently built, the flrcets narrow
and badly paved, its commerce decayed, and many of its antiquities buried in ruins. As a
proof of its antiquity, it was the capital of Allobrogia till the Romans fubdued thefe people,
as well as thofe who inhabited the banks of the Rhone. They then made it the metropolis
of Gallia Narbonenfis Secunda, and eftabliihed a colony, granting its inhabitants the privilege
of Roman citizens. Julius Csefar afterwards refided in it, whilft purfuing his contili
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quefls in Giul ; tnd even eUabllilied magaiines to ferre equally for his amy in Spain and
that which was under his own command.
The city of Vienne is ttiil more than three miles in circumference; and amongil tlie
remaining fragments of its former fplendour is part of an amphitheatre, of which the
arena and fome few ionc fteps are nearly the whole of the veftiges left to indicate tlie
original magnificence of the building. There is hefides an extenfivc edifice, now ufed as
a chapel, fuppofcd by many to have been tire Praitorium of the Romans, and by others a
temple.
Travellers are likewife iliewn a fmall and ancient ruin, of Roman conftruction, generally
believed by the people of the coontry to hare been inhabited by Pontius Pilate during
his banithment from Romci as alfo a tower, where they fay he ended his days by poifon.
This anecdote being fearcely probable, the Author does not prefume to relate it as a matter
of certainty.
The environs of the city fiiil afford a number of ruinated pieces of antiquity, which
doubtiefs merit the attention of the curious i but the Author has feleftcd the one which
forms the fubjefl of the annexed plate, as bemg particularly interefdng to eveiy intelligent
obfervcr.
This Obelitk, or rather Pyramid, ftands on the left hand fide of the road from Avignon,
and about a mile from Vienne. It is thMy feet high, aitd is raitid on a vaulted
pedeital, fupported and ornamented by eight columns of the Tufcan order, that is, two
columns on each fide of the building, and the entrance is arched. The height of the
pedeftal is twenty-four feet, and its width twenty i the whole of free-ftone witliout cement.
It appears to have been crafted as a maufoieum for fome great man of antiquity, whofe
name even this noble monument of vanity has not been able to immortaliie i for it has
puzzled fevci-al of our antiquaries to point out the origin, tlie time, and oceafion, of its
ere£tion, which has not been done with any fueeefs, there being neither infcriptions nor
figures of any kind which could favom- the different opinions which have been given.
That of Montfaueon indeed feems to be the moft probable. He fuppofes it to have been
an ancient tomb, as he pcrccived an oblong ttone jetting out from the middle of the vault,
in whielt the afhcs of the dcfunft were probably contained.
But the idea of its being a Roman work can fcareely be credited, itnlefs it had been
exeented towards the decline of the empire, when the arts were no longer in their high
flate of perfeflion i the a rchi teeW being without tafte, and the columns out of propor