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Paris History:
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The settlement came under Roman control after the revolt of 52 BC when Vercingetorix led a Celtic uprising against the Romans under Caesar.
This revolt and the entire roman conquest of the area is told by Julius Caesar in his book The Gallic War (Oxford World's Classics).
The town sided with the Celtic rebels and was said to have contributed 8,000 men to Vercingetorix's army. The town was garrisoned by Vercingetorix's lieutenant Camulogenus, whose army camped on the Mons Lutetius where the Panth�on and Saint Etienne du Mont now stand.
The Romans crushed the Celts at nearby Melun and took control of the area, renaming the town Lutece. Under Roman rule, the town was thoroughly Romanized and grew considerably.
It was Christianised in the 3rd century when St Denis became the city's first bishop.
The process was by far a peaceful one. In about 250 St Denis and two companions were arrested and decapitated on the hill of Mons Mercurius, thereafter known in Latin anyway as Mons Martis, Martyrs Hill, later to be called Montmartre.
The story goes that the two Saints then picked up their heads an walked to the area of the ville of Saint Denis and it is there that a cathedral was which became the burial site for many of the kings and queens of France in the centuries to come.
Lutece was renamed Paris in 212, forever commemorating the earliest settlers. The rest of the 3rd and 4th century it was wracked by war and civil unrest.
The city came under attack from invaders from the north, prompting the construction of a defensive city wall, the first of many that Paris was to see over the years.
Roman Temple
Canaletto, Antonio
In 357 the Emperor Constantine's nephew Julian arrived in Paris to become the city's new governor. Although his uncle was the emperor who declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire, Julian worked to limit the influence of this religion. He became emperor in 361 but died in battle only two years later.
Roman rule in the area effectively collapsed in the 5th century. In 451 the region was invaded by Attila the Hun, prompting fears that Paris would be attacked.
According to legend, the city was saved by the piety of Sainte Genevi�ve and her followers, whose prayers for relief were answered when Attila's march turned away from Paris to the south. Saint Genevi�ve remains Paris' patron saint to this day.
The city's escape from Attila proved a short-lived reprieve. It was attacked and overrun in 464 by Childeric I, and thereby extending the rule of the Merovingians over the city.
Visigoth Tower, Carcassonne, France
His son Clovis I made the city his capital in 506 and he was buried there after his death in 511.
By this time, Paris was a typically crowded early medieval city with timber buildings alongside surviving Roman stone works.
In 585, the City experience an extensive fire but it soon recovered and continued to grow on both sides of the river.
The Merovingian kings died out in 751, to be replaced by The Carolingians.
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