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Origin and history

The Gallo-Roman villa of Lassalles, in Montmaurin (Haute-Garonne), is one of the largest in Aquitaine Gaul. Installed in the first century under the Pax Romana, it extended over more than 1,000 hectares with a rustica pars (agricultural buildings) and an urban pars (master's lodge). A wall of 18 hectares protected the whole, employing up to 500 people. The villa experienced a decline or partial abandonment at the end of the 2nd or 3rd century, perhaps due to a flood of Sava.

In the fourth century, the residence was transformed into a luxurious palace of 5,800 m2, with two Greco-Roman style peristyles, thermal baths, a nymph and an outdoor swimming pool. Its south-west/north-east front was 117 metres, with a semi-circular courtyard of honour bordered by colonnades and a Gallic hexagonal temple. The outbuildings included forges, a tile and a weaving shop. The site, inhabited until the fifth or sixth century, today reflects its peak of the fourth century.

Discovered in the 19th century, the villa was first taken for a "templar convent" before Saint Paul's Anthymus identified Roman origin in 1865. Isidore Miro and Abbé Jean-Marie Couret conducted the first excavations (1879–82), followed by Georges Fouet (1947–1960). Ranked a historic monument in 1949, it is now managed by the National Monuments Centre. Some historians, such as Jean-Charles Balty, suggest a connection with the Roman imperial family, especially Nepotian, ephemeral emperor in 350, whose mother Eutropia II could have resided there.

The remains include a mysterious building ("Building II"), near the Sava, with a watertight well filled with ash, dios and objects (braces, coins, tools). Deep 10,60 meters, its use remains debated: quoted for rainwater or funerary well. The objects discovered (statues, coins) are exhibited at the Musée de Montmaurin, while the site, open to the public, illustrates the fascist of the Gallo-Roman elites of the South-West.

The villa should not be confused with the most modest villa in La Hillère, located 1 km north, also on the edge of Save. Its strategic location in the Pyrenean Piedmont, near the gorges of the Sava, and its proximity to the ancient road (now D9d) underline its economic and symbolic importance in the region.

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