The Marble of Thorigny is the base of a sandstone statue (not marble) discovered in Vieux (not in Thorigny), located in the Calvados department of Normandy. The inscriptions carved on it describe the political career of a high-ranking Gallo-Roman figure, Titus Sennius Sollemnis, "one of the few notable individuals known in the Armorican part of Gallia Lugdunensis," according to Pascal Vipard. The decision to erect the monument was made by the members of the Council of the Gauls in Lugdunum. The inscriptions on the marble represent "the most extensive text the Council ever had engraved for one of its members."
This stone, said by an unreliable tradition to have been discovered in 1580, but more plausibly found in the 17th century, is the most important epigraphic document from Normandy. The monument, transported to the present-day Manche department, was kept at the Château des Matignon, then moved to Saint-Lô, where it was severely damaged during the bombings that destroyed the town in 1944. Transferred to the University of Caen in the 1950s, it returned to Saint-Lô at the end of the 1980s.
Henri Van Effenterre described it as "one of the most beautiful and curious inscriptions of Roman Gaul." The monument's fame is due to the work of Hans-Georg Pflaum in the mid-20th century, following many earlier studies, particularly since the 19th century. The exceptional nature of the Marble of Thorigny provides insight into the life of elites in Gaul during the Roman Empire, from legal and social perspectives, as well as the troubled political circumstances of the 3rd century.
Reproduced by casting several times throughout its history, the original pedestal has been classified as a historic object since June 6, 1922.
History
Ancient history
History of Aregenua from its origins to the 5th century
The current commune of Vieux lies about 10 km southwest of Caen, 20 km from the English Channel, and within the watershed of a stream, the Juine.
The city of Aregenua, capital of the Viducasses tribe, was founded in the 1st century and peaked in the 2nd and 3rd centuries under the Severan dynasty, making it contemporaneous with the Marble of Thorigny. The city received the status of Latin Rights late—this constitutes a kind of "legal Romanization." Romanization ended in the 3rd century. The Viducasses are mentioned by Pliny the Elder, and the city is first named in Greek by Ptolemy; the Latin mention is no earlier than the Peutinger Table.
The city's baths were built through the benefaction of Titus Sennius Sollemnis's father, probably between 200 and 220 AD. Sollemnis's father left the building unfinished. These baths were found in the area known as "Champ des Crêtes," and display architectural features comparable to those uncovered in the excavation of the house with a large peristyle.
During the crises that afflicted the Roman Empire in the 3rd century, the city was affected, but unlike other nearby cities such as Lisieux, Bayeux, or Évreux, it was not given defensive walls. While the site continued to be inhabited, it lost importance to Bayeux, which became the seat of a bishopric. By the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, the city's decline became even more pronounced. It merged with Bayeux in the early 4th century and disappeared administratively before 400. A large part of the population left the site at that time.
Titus Sennius Sollemnis, a notable of the Viducasses
The Marble of Thorigny stood in the forum of Vieux during antiquity.
Titus Sennius Sollemnis, "the most famous of the Viducasses," was likely born around 170 AD during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. He came from a wealthy family that played an important role in their city and perhaps in all of Gaul, at least in the case of the last known member, the subject of the inscription. He is "the last known representative" of his family.
His father, Sollemninus, commissioned the construction of the city's southern baths, and his generosity extended to providing a sum for their maintenance. His career unfolded under the later Antonines and the Severans. He could not complete the thermal complex during his lifetime, and his son had to finish it. Furthermore, a foundation was established to provide income for the structure's operation.
The territory of the Viducasses was wealthy in iron mines, and some forty villas have been identified in the Caen plain using aerial photography. The wealth of the Sennii family likely came from the exploitation of these estates and perhaps from the iron mines. A property at Touffréville, the villa of La Saussaye, is known to have included both an agricultural operation and an iron mining site with a forge. The site of the baths in Vieux yielded an altar to Vulcan dating to the late 2nd or early 3rd century, associated with ironwork and blacksmithing.
Summary of the career of Titus Sennius Sollemnis
Titus Sennius Sollemnis began his career at the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the 3rd century. He may have become duumvir for the first time at age 28, as it was common to attain this office between the ages of 28 and 31. His local magistracy likely occurred during the Severan dynasty.
He was part of the delegation of notables that Gallic cities sent annually to Lugdunum, the provincial capital, to celebrate the imperial cult. Delegates from the various cities chose him as high priest of Rome and Augustus in 220 AD. Pascal Vipard, for his part, prefers the date 219.
He presided over the Council of the Gauls in 219. Sollemnis was a federal priest at Condate and flamen in 219–220, around 50, assuming his career followed a standard pace. He then served under the governor Tiberius Claudius Paulinus. Paulinus was accused after he left the province of Lugdunensis, and when he arrived in Britannia Inferior, possibly in July–August 219. Marcus Aedinius Julianus then arrived in Lugdunensis. Julianus belonged to the equestrian order. The accusation against Paulinus came up at the first meeting following the governor's departure, around August 1, 220. Sollemnis then stated that the accusing delegates had no mandate from their cities for such action. He declared that his city had asked for praise for the governor, and Paulinus's enemies were thereby thwarted. The end of the letter is not reproduced on the face of the inscription, likely because it contained formal thanks and held no interest for the political context.
Sollemnis traveled extensively due to patronage ties: he is said to have been in Rome in 223. His presence in Africa to assist the military tribune of the Legio III Augusta is mentioned in the inscription, but cannot be dated. He went to Lower Britain, where Tiberius Claudius Paulinus was governor and commander of the Legio VI Victrix, founded by Septimius Severus in 197. The separation of Britain into different provinces was intended by the emperor to limit the risk of revolts by governors. Sollemnis likely departed for Britain in the second half of the year 220 to perform the functions of assessor or tribunus sexmenstris. He also went to Africa, possibly between 223 and 238, as assessor to the legion's legate in Lambaesis. These missions took place during the reigns of Alexander Severus and Maximinus.
In 238, he either held or had just finished holding the office of iudex arace ferrariarum, administrator of the Gallic iron mines, for the Three Gauls—a mission whose duration is unknown at the time of the monument's erection. In 238, Sollemnis was nearly 70 years old. On the seventeenth day before the Kalends of January (December 17) in 238, the Council of the Gauls chose to erect a statue in his honor at Aregenua, the city where he was a magistrate, at a location provided by the decuriones. The decision to erect the statue was made in August. On three faces of its base were engraved the name of the honored person, his career, and copies of letters sent to him by powerful individuals from the emperor's entourage, likely deceased at the time of the monument's erection, according to Pascal Vipard. Hans-Georg Pflaum, on the other hand, believes that Sennius's patrons were still alive and close to Gordian III. The copies of the letters, predating the monument, may have been provided by Titus Sennius Sollemnis himself.
Rediscovery and history from the 16th century to World War II
Inscriptions found within the area of what would become Normandy are rare. The Thorigny marble is one of fifteen inscriptions recorded by Christian Pilet as discovered at Vieux. According to Henri Van Effenterre, it has known "many misadventures" since its rediscovery.
The stone, said to have been unearthed in 1580 according to "poorly supported traditions," was discovered "at an uncertain date" between the 1540s and the 1660s. Maurice Besnier suggests a discovery in 1668. After being lost, it was rediscovered around 1675–1678.
The stone was transported by Jacques de Matignon to his castle in Torigni-sur-Vire, from which it gets its name. The Matignon family was then the governors of Normandy. At the château, the monument was stored in "shacks," then in the orangery, and finally in the vestibule in 1726. During its time at the château, the marble was forgotten and eventually "wrecked by slate cutters." These craftsmen, working outdoors, used the monument in their trade, which nearly erased lines 2 through 14.
From 1814 onward, the stone was kept in Saint-Lô, where it served as the base for the bronze bust of Urbain Le Verrier, a French astronomer and mathematician specialized in celestial mechanics and the founder of modern French meteorology. In 1814, the owner donated the monument to Pierre Louis Clément, then Secretary-General of the Manche prefecture. He kept it at home before transferring it to the town hall, where it remained for almost a century and a half.
Since World War II
The stone was damaged during the American bombing of the city, as it had been kept in the town hall vestibule. This event marked "the greatest disaster in its history," when the ground floor of the building collapsed onto it. The 16th and 17th lines on the main face of the monument were almost completely erased in the fire that followed the bombing. After the war, the stone was "cracked by fire, surface-eroded, and internally fissured by the blaze's heat."
René-Norbert Sauvage, of the Society of Antiquaries of Normandy, located the monument among the ruins and entrusted it to the archaeological society of the Manche. It was stored in a damp cellar beneath the Manche prefecture, then used as a cheese-aging room, and ended up "in a thousand pieces." The historian and epigraphist Hans-Georg Pflaum came to study it in 1947.
Later, it was transferred to the University of Caen, to the basement of the Faculty of Letters, in spring 1955, at the request of Pierre Daure and with the agreement of the Saint-Lô municipality. The transport caused additional damage to the fragments. Hans-Georg Pflaum believed that these degradations resulted from the move to the Basse-Normandie capital in spring 1955. Although broken into about 12 fragments, the lower part was in better condition than the upper section. History students sorted the fragments using the stone's veining and the inscriptions. A sculptor, G. Latapie, was then tasked with its restoration. The restorer used a special cement with metallic components. The cornice was not recreated with trompe-l'œil elements to preserve the marble's "battered look."
The marble also suffered an accident on May 28, 1957, according to Louis Harmand, during its installation, which caused it to lose "beginnings and ends of lines." It fell from the crane that was supposed to place it on the second floor of the Law and Letters building and bounced down to the ground floor. A new sculptor, M. Delaville, was brought in to care for the monument.
The Thorigny marble was displayed in the entrance hall to the university library, but when the Faculty of Arts and Humanities was relocated, the monument again fell into "relative oblivion." It finally rejoined the collections of the Saint-Lô Museum in September 1989, in a corner of the entrance hall, although the Société des Antiquaires de Normandie was only informed of this new transfer in May 1990.
Description
The Thorigny marble is in a poor state of preservation. No photographs of the monument were taken before the 1944 bombings.
The monument is made of sandstone, Cambrian arkose, which has veining and is therefore fragile. This type of stone was used locally until contemporary times. The monument measures 1.46 meters by approximately 0.85 meters. The sides are 0.56 meters wide. The monument weighs about 1.5 tons.
The marble was the pedestal for a bronze statue, "likely life-sized." There may have been a base, which appears in an 18th-century drawing, but this element is now lost. A cornice is present. The top of the Thorigny marble has holes. The figure likely had its left foot forward. Two holes at the back were meant to fix it to a wall, according to Édouard Lambert.
Only three sides bear inscriptions, the fourth having been placed against a wall according to Antoine Héron de Villefosse. This last face was not polished and remained in its raw state.
The monument contains 82 lines of text, approximately 390 words. The inscription is shallow, and the stonecutter used ligatures and overlapping letters for decorative effect. The lateral sides were well preserved until 1944, but the condition of the main face differs. Significant portions of the text were already missing by then, particularly the first sixteen lines. These damages were already present in the last quarter of the 18th century.