Marseille2 is a commune in the South-East of France, capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and prefecture of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.

In 2018, Marseille is the second most populous municipality in France with 868,277 inhabitants. Its urban unit, which extends north to Aix-en-Provence, is the third in France with 1,607,292 inhabitants, behind Paris and Lyon. Since January 1, 2016, Marseille has been home to the headquarters of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis, the second most populous in France with 1,873,707 inhabitants3. Its urban area is, for its part, the third in France after those of Paris and Lyon with 1,756,296 inhabitants in 2016. These figures make Marseille the largest city in the South of France, in the Occitan cultural region, as well as in the linguistic area of ​​the langue d'oc.

Oldest city in France4 founded in Antiquity under the name of Μασσαλία / Massalía) around 600 BC. AD by Greek sailors and merchants from Phocaea (today Foça, near Izmir, Turkey), Marseille has been an important trading and transit port since Antiquity. It experienced considerable commercial growth during the colonial period and more particularly during the 19th century, becoming a prosperous industrial and trading city5.

As a legacy of this past, the Grand Maritime Port of Marseille (GPMM) and the maritime economy constitute major centers of regional and national activity6 and Marseille remains the leading French port, the second Mediterranean port7 and the fifth European port8. Its privileged location on the edge of the Mediterranean allowing the arrival of numerous underwater cables also makes Marseille the ninth hub for connection to the global internet network with one of the strongest global growth in this sector9,10.

Marseille's openness to the Mediterranean Sea has made it since its origins a cosmopolitan city marked by numerous cultural and economic exchanges with Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Since the 17th century, it has often been considered the “Gateway to the Orient” on the French Mediterranean coast11.

The first vestiges of human presence in the Marseille basin date back to around 60,000 BC. AD (Middle Paleolithic)85. During the Upper Paleolithic the Cosquer cave, then not submerged, was occupied between 27,000 and 19,000 before the present. Furthermore, in June 200586, excavations uncovered remains of a Neolithic settlement dating back to 6,000 BCE, near Saint-Charles station, around rue Bernard du Bois87. Pottery fragments found on the south bank of the Old Port attest to the human occupation of the site in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC88. During the Paleolithic, populations lived in this area, as evidenced by the presence of a habitat on one side of the hills adjoining the Riaux (watercourse). Seafood, hunting and gathering products were consumed there (the numerous caves and surrounding oppida are worthy of interest at Estaque as at Martigues, on the site of La Cloche, or even at Verduron).

The cliffs and caves were occupied around the bed of the Riaux (watercourse), remains found in the 19th and 20th centuries prove human activity dating from the Magdalenian, i.e. between −17,000 and −10,000 years ago, the hunter period. pickers.

Max Escalon de Fonton, archaeologist, discovered cut flints (blades, scrapers), animal bones (ibex, lynx, bear, wolf), a perforated shell necklace as well as other remains from this period, as well as a decorated ceramic dated 6,000 years ago, and the burial of a teenager in a folded position.

In the Crispine cave in the hills of the Les Riaux district, “perforated pebbles, a very large hearth, Mesolithic black earth pottery, small scrapers and numerous canid coprolites (fossil excrement)89 were found.

Caves with intentional burials are little known in the Marseille region. The one called “la Crispine” is difficult to access, because it is currently on a site under decontamination, however in this Nerthe so little studied by archaeologists, Clastrier discovered a deposit of great interest whose objects have been bequeathed at the historical institute of Provence90.

This cave is located in the Nerthe range on the property of the Rio Tinto Chemical Company, its average altitude is around 150 m. It almost overlooks the entrance to the tunnel which pierces the mountain at this point and which links Marseille to the Rhône. In the country, this cave is called Crispine or Crispin. This name could come from Christ-Pinis (Christ in the pines), because in 1793, under the Terror, Catholics secretly went to hear mass there.

The entrance to this cave has an ogival shape. Long used as a sheepfold, a wall with a door partially closes it, it measures 17.50 m long and 10 m wide.

Mr. Clastrier would have encountered an old excavation trench (of unknown origin) there (perhaps from Marion or Fourrier). Discovery of traces of modern habitation, a few bricks, a shepherd's cottage, and in the middle a beautiful square wheel rounded by human work, a few bones, large shells, goat's horn.

On his return, Clastrier would have taken steps to obtain authorization to pass through the Rio-Tinto factories to continue the exploration, he would then have discovered a fragment of Neolithic or Ligurian pottery, then in a fairly narrow passage, he would have discovered the first flints but also bone debris which would correspond to the local fauna, as well as food and meal remains, sheep teeth, broken and burned bones, marine shells, limpets, carbonized wood, charcoal . But above all knives, scrapers, primitive tools which would have been used in the Neolithic era. Also human bones. “The relic I was looking for I found under my fingers. O, how delicately I unearth a head lying on the right side, the mask is regular, the normal type, the maxilla is missing; four strong teeth remained worn and rounded at the edges; the subject has lived for many years. What a surprise ! Once the head comes out, everything underneath is burned, then all around this head, half-cooked mixed with black earth, bones of large and medium vertebrae, burned and broken but also vases without feet in crumbs, amulets , objects that belonged to the dead and thrown there in a funeral ceremony that is unknown to us.”
antiquity
Detailed article: Ancient Marseille.
Massalia, Greek city

The original topography of the site of the Greek city is still largely perceptible today, despite the significant modifications of the 19th century. A promontory surrounded by the sea, the site is dominated by three successive mounds: the Saint-Laurent mound (26 meters above sea level in 1840), the Moulins mound (42 meters) and the Carmes mound (around 40 meters)91.
Foundation of the city: the legend even if the hypothesis was put forward by François Villard: there does not seem to be any links of belonging, except for the Mayans whose structure suggests that it housed a garrison, probably Greek . There are numerous exchanges with them as evidenced by the coins found on the Baou Roux site, on the other side of the Etoile.

We note:

    on Garlaban103: Colline du Château, Peynaou, Ruissatel, Bec Cornu, Baou des Gouttes, Gavots,
    on Regagnas: Le Tonneau, Saint Jacques, Baou de la Gache
    on l'Étoile: la Cride, la Tête de l'Ost104, le Baou Roux, les Mayans (Camp Jussiou), Le baou de Saint Marcel and le Collet Redon on the south-eastern slope105
    on the Estaque chain: Verduron (Camp Long?), Teste Negre, la Cloche, followed by others clearly independent and as old if not older, as far as Martigues and beyond.

Marseille and Rome

At the start of the Second Punic War, Scipio was sent by Rome to protect Massilia, an allied city, a supposed target of Hannibal which he thought he would find near the Pyrenees, and thus block his passage along the coast. Hannibal failed to bring the Gallic tribes on his side and his troops were attacked from the Iberian Peninsula, but he was already further north. The tribes of the region of Massilia, future Provincia, allies of Rome, were avoided around the middle of August 218 BC. AD There were 38,000 infantrymen, 8,000 cavalrymen and 37 elephants who could have besieged Massilia, which crossed the Rhône four days' march north of Marseille, at the height of the current village of Caderousse. When Scipio realizes his mistake, he lets his troops continue on Iberia but returns to prepare the legions in the Po plain. Massilia is spared.

In 181 BC. BC, the Phocaean Massaliotes and their Helleno-Celtic Cavare allies from the Cavaillon-Avignon-Orange region call on Rome for help against the Ligurian pirates.

During the 3rd century BC. BC, Marseille found itself confronted with the growing power of its Gallic neighbors, in particular the Salyens. To face their threat, the city once again calls on its ally Rome, which has become the great Mediterranean power.

The real conquest did not begin until 120 BC. BC, with the military campaign of the Roman proconsul Gaius Sextius Calvinus, which saw part of the oppidda to the north of Massilia razed. But the province only received its official status after Pompey's visit in the 70s BC. B.C. Colony to compete with Massillia, Aquae Sextiae (Aix), was founded in 122 BC. AD

A client of Julius Caesar and Pompey, Marseille refused in 49 BC to take sides in Caesar's civil war, while welcoming Pompey's emissaries. Defeated at sea and besieged by three legions for two months by Caesar then by his legate Caius Trebonius, the city was taken (Bellum Civile, book I, 34-36, etc.), deprived of its colonies[96][insufficient source] and must submit to Rome. The Romans attached it to the Narbonnaise province. The rest of the remaining oppida is then probably razed (La Cloche). During the time of Augustus, the city underwent a new major phase of construction. The agora-forum was rebuilt as evidenced by the fragments of paving discovered by Fernand Benoit to the south of the Caves de Saint-Sauveur. The forum is bordered to the west by another large building, the theater, some stands of which have been preserved until today within the walls of the Vieux-Port college106. Thermal baths are installed along the port: the remains, reassembled on Place Villeneuve-Bargemon, are today visible