page_title: Angoulême
section_title: Antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Angoulême / History / Antiquity
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: galerie lapidaire du musée archéologique d'Angoulême; chapiteau IIè siècle (fouilles du Crédit Lyonnais, rue des Halles, 1888, Angoulême)
context_page_description: Angoulême is a commune, the capital of the Charente department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France.
  The inhabitants of the commune are known as Angoumoisins or Angoumoisines.
  Located on a plateau overlooking a meander of the Charente River, the city is nicknamed the "balcony of the southwest". The city proper's population is a little less than 42,000 but it is the centre of an urban area of 110,000 people extending more than fifteen kilometres from east to west.
  Formerly the capital of Angoumois in the Ancien Régime, Angoulême was a fortified town for a long time, and was highly coveted due to its position at the centre of many roads important to communication, so therefore it suffered many sieges. From its tumultuous past, the city, perched on a rocky spur, inherited a large historical, religious, and urban heritage which attracts a lot of tourists.
  Nowadays, Angoulême is at the centre of an agglomeration, which is one of the most industrialised regions between Loire and Garonne. It is also a commercial and administrative city with its own university of technology, and a vibrant cultural life.
context_section_description: The history of the city is not very well known before the Roman period: it is simply known that the plateau was occupied by an oppidum, traces of which were found during excavations in the Saint-Martial cemetery under the name Iculisma. Its currency was Lemovice.
  The town was not located on major roads and was considered by the poet Ausonius as a small town. No Roman monuments have been found but it benefited from the Pax Romana and from trade on the river. The town had a prosperous period at the end of the Roman Empire. The rocky promontory overlooking the Charente 80 metres (260 feet) high and over the Anguienne 60 metres (200 feet) high formed a strategic position. It was raised to the rank of capital of civitas (at the end of the 3rd or 4th centuries) and the first fortress dates from the end of the Roman Empire. The rampart called Bas-Empire which surrounds 27 hectares of land was maintained until the 13th century. The network of Roman roads were then reorganized to link the town with the surrounding cities of Bordeaux, Saintes, Poitiers, Limoges, and Périgueux.
  The city of Haut-Empire remained unknown for a long time. Recent excavations have provided details on the power of the Roman city. A well dug in an early era shows that the water table was very high. A large thermal spa complex was found under the courthouse which is usually related to water supply through an aqueduct.
  The first bishop of Angoulême was Saint Ausone of Angoulême in the 3rd century. The administrative importance of the city was strengthened by the implementation of a County in the 6th century with Turpion (or Turpin) (839–863), adviser to Charles the Bald. However, the town was always attached to the various kingdoms of Aquitaine and the end of antiquity for the city was in 768, when Pepin the Short defeated Hunald II and linked it to the Frankish kingdom. In June 2019, archeologists discovered a prehistoric stone with an engraving of a horse and other animals near Angoulême station. The Palaeolithic stone plate is estimated to be about 12,000 years old.
caption: A Capital from the 2nd century discovered in 1888 on the Rue des Halles
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