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o met the two brothers contending for the kingdom of the Allobroges ; who, having granted succours or assistance to the eldest, Brancus (according to ), obtained the object he had in view, to facilitate his passage into Italy across the . In the time of the Romans it is supposed to have formed one of the principal cities of Gallia Celtica, or Lugdunensis prima. The emperor , and afterwards Nero, are said to have contributed greatly towards its aggrandisement and embellishment. It is even asserted, that Augustus made it for a short time his place of residence. And, according to some authors, it boasts of having been the native city of Marcus Aurelius, and of Claudius Nero, son to Drusus. Suetonius, the historian, in his life of , speaks of the gymnasium, or academy, at , for the discussion of Greek and Latin subjects, on the same plan of that formerly at Athens : and the abbé Expelli, in his Dictionary of the , says, that the monastery of Aney, now known by the name of Monasterium Athenense, is built on the spot where that academy once stood. liiere are few cities in France which have experienced, at distant epochas, such calamities as Lyons, having not only suffered by revolutions in various shapes, but been ravaged at different periods by the successive inroads of barbarous hordes, who, after the decline of the , made frequent incursions into ; so that few vestiges remain of its ancient magnificence ; although sufficient to convey to a contem­ plative mind serious reflexions on the sad vicissitudes and reverses to which human affairs are liable. These vestiges chiefly consist in the scattered remains of a Roman palace, theatre, public baths, &c. ; the greatest part of which are still buried or concealed in the rubbish or loose fragments of the mountains of Gonevière. It is therefore no improbable idea, that the ancient city of Lyons, or , which derives its appel­ lation from Lucii dunum, or mount of Lîicius, dunum being Celtic for a mountain, originally stood on the declivity of the mountain ; a conjecture which appears still more forcibly confirmed by the extensive subterraneous passages which have of late been discovered on the eastern side of it; part of which I visited in 1787.

On the summit of the same eminence stand the superb remains of an aqueduct. This beautiful Roman work is supported by a tier of arches, some of which exceed fifty feet in height ; and, from what now remains of this curious work, it seems to have extended upwards of ten miles in length. Its construction merits the attention of every man of observation, being mostly built of small pebbles, incrusted with a strong cement.