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Origin and history

The Campanus Arch, located in Aix-les-Bains (former Aquae), is a Roman building dating from the 1st or 2nd century, under the High Empire. Built by Lucius Pompius Campanus, a notable Romanized allobroge of the city of Vienna, he pays tribute to his family, Les Pompii, via 14 partially deciphered epigraphic cartridges. Its atypical dimensions (9.15 m high, 0.75 m thick) and its sober architecture (Tuscan order, shallow niches) make it a unique monument, perhaps a symbolic door between the thermal baths and the temple of Diane.

The arch was integrated into medieval buildings (a courthouse, stable), preserving its structure despite a gradual burial. Rediscovered in 1822 and classified in 1890, it sparks debates about its function: funerary monument (excluding pomerium), urban gate, or honorary arch. Recent excavations suggest that Aix-les-Bains was an agropastoral rural vicus, where the local aristocracy (like Pompii and Titii) financed thermal baths and monuments, without a structured urban frame.

The inscriptions, oriented towards the thermal baths, celebrate three generations of the Campanus family, but their interpretation remains partial. The arch, built of Seyssel stone (white limestone of Franclens and Surjoux), presents a frieze of alternate niches, initially interpreted as urns or statuette sites, hypothesis now rejected. Its state of conservation limits the understanding of its attic, perhaps decorated with busts.

Assumptions about its function evolve with archaeological discoveries. In the 19th century, there was a triumphal arch (Aymar du Rivail, 1535) or a monument to the Lower Empire (Adolphe Joanne, 1882). Today, two theories dominate: the monumental gate marking the transition between the thermal sanctuary (outside the village) and the temple (in the village), or the exterior funeral monument, like the arches of the Flavian bridge at Saint-Chamas. The latter hypothesis is based on the imperial necropolis 300 m north.

The arch is inseparable from the thermal context of Aix-les-Bains, where the allobrogian aristocracy invested in infrastructure (thermal, temple of Diane) to earn income. Pompii and Titii, the dominant families, left epigraphic traces, revealing a rural society organized around possessors (terrestrial owners) and a council of decemlicti. The absence of a structured monumental centre and the elevation of the site (10 m between temple and thermal baths) make the hypothesis of an ancient classical city unlikely.

Ranked among the first French historical monuments (1890), the Campanus arch illustrates the romanization of local elites and the adaptation of Roman architectural models (such as the gates of Narbonnaise) to an alpine vicus. His study, from François de Mouxy de Loche (XIXth century) to Philippe Leveau (2000s), reflects the evolution of methods in archaeology, combining epigraphy, topography and urban excavations.

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