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Origin and history

The Gallo-Roman theatre of the Bouchauds, built in the 1st century and redesigned in the 3rd century, is located on the side of a hill of Saint-Cybardeaux (Charente), close to two major Roman roads: the road of Agrippa (Saintes-Lyon) and a secondary road from Angoulême to Périgueux. Its strategic location, at 154 m above sea level, dominates the valleys of the Charente and the Nouère, suggesting a central role in a secondary agglomeration, perhaps Sermanicomagus (mentioned on the Table de Puisinger). The site combines a 105-metre-diameter theatre (the largest of Aquitaine, surpassing that of Orange) and a Celto-Roman shrine at the top, mixing octagonal temples (Celtic tradition) and rectangular (Greco-Roman influence).

Discovered in 1865 by Jean Gontier, an amateur archaeologist, the theatre was then covered by vegetation, leaving visible only a vomitory (passage for spectators) interpreted locally as the ruins of a "Château des Fades", linked to fairy legends. Gontier alone financed the first excavations and obtained the classification at the Historic Monuments in 1881. Ruined and desperate by the lack of institutional support, he committed suicide on the site in 1894, buried at the highest point with his dog. In 1900 Solange Laporte-Bisquit (wife of the Senator Mayor of Jarnac) bought the estate and entrusted the excavations to the Jesuit Camille de La Croix, who revealed between 1907 and 1995 a secondary agglomeration with baths, habitats, and a sanctuary housing a statuette of Mercury in gold silver.

The theatre, dug in the limestone hill, could accommodate 5,000 to 6,000 spectators. Its cellara (gradins) was partly made of wood, while l'orchestra (semi-circular space) contained rows of stone reserved for local elites (flamines, decurions). Unlike classical Roman theatres, it was primarily used for imperial worship: the emperor's effigy, installed on stage, faced the community gathered in the cellara, with ceremonies (games, processions) in the orchestra. The neighboring sanctuary, searched in the 20th century, delivered octagonal temples (I century) and fana (II-III centuries), as well as Gaulish coins (-I century), attesting to a pre-Roman occupation.

Abandoned in the fourth century, the site darkened into oblivion until its rediscovery. Today, it visits freely all year round, with summer activities (guided tours, Gallo-Roman Nights) and hosts the Sarabandes des Bouchauds, a festival. The sanctuary, classified in 1992, and the theatre (classified in 1881) are owned by the Charente department. Their study sheds light on religious syncretism in Roman Gaul, where Celtic traditions (the cult of Mercury) and Romanity (the imperial cult) coexisted in the same place of civic and sacred gathering.

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