a
met the two brothers contending for the kingdom of the Allobroges j who, having
granted succours or assistance to the eldest, Brancus (according to Livy), obtained the
object he had in view, to facilitate his passage into Italy across the Alps.
In the time of the Romans it is supposed to have formed one of the principal cities of
Gallia Cdtica, or Lngdunensis prima. The emperor Augustus, and aftenvards Nero,
are said to have contributed greatly towards its aggrandisement and embellishment.
It is even asserted, that Augustus made it for a short time his place of residence. And,
according to some authors, it boasts of having been the native city of Marcus Aurelius,
and of Claudius Nero, son to Dmsus. Suetonius, the historian, in his life of Caligula,
speaks of the gymnasium, or academy, at Lyons, for the discussion of Greek and Latin
subjects, on the same plan of that formerly at Athens ; and the abbé Expelli, in his
Dictionary of the Gauis, says, that the monastery of Aney, now known by the name of
Monaslerium Albenense, is built on the spot where that academy once stood.
There are few cities in France which have experienced, at distant epochas, such
calamities as Lyons, having not only suffered by revolutions in various shapes, but been
ravaged at different periods by the successive Inroads of barbarous hordes, who, after
the decline of the Roman empire, made frequent incursions into Gaul; so that few
vestiges remain of its ancient magnificence ; although sufficient to convey to a contemplative
mind serious reflexions on the sad vicissitudes and reverses to which human
affairs are liable. These vestiges chiefly consist in the scattered remains of a Roman
palace, theatre, public baths, 8ic, ; the greatest part of which are still buried or concealed
in the rubbish or loose fi-agments of the mountains of Go7ieDiire. It is therefore no
improbable idea, that the ancient city of Lyons, or Lugdunum, which derives its appellation
from Lucii dumtm, or mount of Lnciiis, diinum being Celtic for a mountain,
originally stood on the declivity of the mountain ; a conjecture which appears still
more forcibly confirmed by the extensive subterraneous passages which have of late
been discovered on the eastern side of it ; part of which I visited in 1787.
On the summit of the same eminence stand the superb remains of an aqueduct.
This beautiful Roman work is supported by a tier of arches, some of which exceed
fifty feet in height; and, from what now remains of this curious work, it seems to have
extended upwards of ten miles in length. Its construction merits the attention of
every man of observation, being mostly built of small pebbles, incrusted with a strong
cement.