Description : Pons is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department in southwestern France. The city is known for its numerous national historic monuments dating from the 12th century on wards. One of the most well known is the 33 meter high Keep of Pons the which is the official symbol of the city. The distant origins of Pons date back to the dawn of the Protohistoric period when the rock site under shelter on the edge of the Soute valley favored the settling of the first inhabitants. But this is really only the pre-Roman period that Pons will play an important role due to the implementation of the Celtic people of Santon the middle of the I st millennium BC. BC where the rocky promontory of the primitive city will shelter what will become the oppidum of Pons . During the period of the Santons of independence, Pons quickly became an active center of crafts and trade and developed its exchanges with the Romans. When the Santons submitted to the armies of Julius Caesar in 52 BC. AD , the Romans occupied the oppidum of Pons manu militari and transformed it into a castrum . They also built a typically Roman city and made Pons an important crossroads. However, abandoning the castrum after the second half of the i st century of the Christian era signaled the end of the Gallo-Roman city which in the course of the iii E century, experienced a devastating fire during the invasion of the Alemanni . After reconstruction in haste, it experienced a short period of peace narrated by the poet Ausonius but with the v th century arise new barbarian invasions even more destructive, especially those committed by the Vandals in the fall 408 where the city disappears for long centuries. However, the revival of the small city will take place at the beginning of the Middle Ages thanks to the rise of Christianity in Saintonge.
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