page_title: Nantes
section_title: Prehistory and antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Nantes / History / Prehistory and antiquity
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of the remnants of the Gallo-Roman wall of Nantes, in the former Couvent des Cordeliers, now the École primaire Saint-Pierre This building is indexed in the Base Mérimée, a database of architectural heritage maintained by the French Ministry of Culture,&#160;under the reference PA00108662 . беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎&#160;| বাংলা&#160;| brezhoneg&#160;| català&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| Ελληνικά&#160;| English&#160;| Esperanto&#160;| español&#160;| euskara&#160;| suomi&#160;| français&#160;| magyar&#160;| italiano&#160;| 日本語&#160;| македонски&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| română&#160;| русский&#160;| sicilianu&#160;| svenska&#160;| українська&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: Nantes is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, 50 km from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth-largest in France, with a population of 303,382 in Nantes and a metropolitan area of nearly 950,000 inhabitants. With Saint-Nazaire, a seaport on the Loire estuary, Nantes forms one of the main north-western French metropolitan agglomerations.
  It is the administrative seat of the Loire-Atlantique department and the Pays de la Loire région, one of 18 regions of France. Nantes belongs historically and culturally to Brittany, a former duchy and province, and its omission from the modern administrative region of Brittany is controversial.
  Nantes was identified during classical antiquity as a port on the Loire. It was the seat of a bishopric at the end of the Roman era before it was conquered by the Bretons in 851. Although Nantes was the primary residence of the 15th-century dukes of Brittany, Rennes became the provincial capital after the 1532 union of Brittany and France.
context_section_description: The first inhabitants of what is now Nantes settled during the Bronze Age, later than in the surrounding regions (which have Neolithic monuments absent from Nantes). Its first inhabitants were apparently attracted by small iron and tin deposits in the region's subsoil. The area exported tin, mined in Abbaretz and Piriac, as far as Ireland. After about 1,000 years of trading, local industry appeared around 900 BC; remnants of smithies dated to the eighth and seventh centuries BC have been found in the city. Nantes may have been the major Gaulish settlement of Corbilo, on the Loire estuary, which was mentioned by the Greek historians Strabo and Polybius.
  Its history from the seventh century to the Roman conquest in the first century BC is poorly documented, and there is no evidence of a city in the area before the reign of Tiberius in the first century AD. During the Gaulish period it was the capital of the Namnetes people, who were allied with the Veneti in a territory extending to the northern bank of the Loire. Rivals in the area included the Pictones, who controlled the area south of the Loire in the city of Ratiatum (present-day Rezé) until the end of the second century AD. Ratiatum, founded under Augustus, developed more quickly than Nantes and was a major port in the region. Nantes began to grow when Ratiatum collapsed after the Germanic invasions.
  Because tradesmen favoured inland roads rather than Atlantic routes, Nantes never became a large city under Roman occupation. Although it lacked amenities such as a theatre or an amphitheatre, the city had sewers, public baths and a temple dedicated to Mars Mullo. After an attack by German tribes in 275, Nantes' inhabitants built a wall; this defense also became common in surrounding Gaulish towns. The wall in Nantes, enclosing 16 hectares (40 acres), was one of the largest in Gaul.
  Christianity was introduced during the third century. The first local martyrs (Donatian and Rogatian) were executed in 288–290, and a cathedral was built during the fourth century.
caption: Section of the Roman city wall
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