History and myth of Mont-Milan

Its name may be derived from milia, a measure that among the Romans meant "a thousand paces" and was represented by columns separating distances on a via, similar to how kilometre markers work on roads.
More likely, its name comes from its position amid the waters — medio aquae millac, miliacum, millacense — if we agree that this camp was, for three-quarters of its circumference, surrounded by the waters of the Allier and the Donozau. Some would add the lake of Ponteyre if its disputed existence were admitted.

An explanation for its designation as "mountain of soldiers" would justify a name of "citadel of soldiers" through the Latin mons militum or militum arx.
In any case, the name is indeed that of the district in which it was included.
Legend has made it the camp of Caesar, although this Roman general presumably never set foot there. Only his legions may have stayed there — or rather, transalpine occupation troops at the time of the invasion could have turned it into a fortified camp.
It is a natural fortress perfectly suited for defence.

Steep, rocky, barren slopes protect a platform located 200 m above water level, while fortifications arranged on the other slopes made it an impregnable camp. At the summit, an oval perimeter with respective axes of 210 and 100 m, covering an approximate area of two hectares, was surrounded by dry stone walls forming bastions, with a steep outer face, elevated on the inside and lined with a paved ditch for water drainage. The entrance, on the side of La Valette, was defended by redoubts, now dismantled, but whose existence is revealed by piles of stones gathered nearby.

On the Cheylaret side, one can discern, halfway up, a buttress arranged for defence. A praetorium, erected in the middle of the terrain on a rocky promontory, dominated the platform and was likely the observation and command post. Piles of rolled stones, certainly brought from the valley, indicate the means of defence used. The water belt of the rivers and swamps of Ponteyre completed the isolation of the castra, a true stronghold difficult to capture. Its only weak point was a total lack of drinking water, which would have made a prolonged siege precarious.
This flaw in forming a fortified camp confirms Caesar's opinion regarding the incompetence of the Gauls in defensive warfare. It was already evident at Uxellodunum, where the besieged army, lacking water, sent out suppliers at night to ensure essential resupply. The Roman leader stationed slingers and archers and cut off the water supply necessary for the camp.

It has been assumed that Mont-Milan, a Roman oppidum, was never a Gabalian camp, as no trace of walls built according to Gallic methods has been found. The absence of fortifications alternating between a bed of raw stones and beams laid out at full length and amalgamated with earth — intended to render the attackers' war machines, battering rams, and catapults ineffective — is explained by the fact that the Romans, succeeding the Gabalians, replaced the more primitive fortifications of their predecessors with their own concepts.

The ploughshare and various excavations have uncovered only medals, coins, and weapon debris, primarily Roman; however, pieces of pottery exhumed do not imply their exclusive origin from Caesar's legions. Their antiquity and characteristics would suggest a date prior to 27 BC, that is, before the invasion. As for the designation of the camp of Caesar, transmitted through the ages, it remains very hypothetical. The great Roman general does not seem to have come to Gévaudan. History indeed recounts that the conquest of pagus Galvadanus was the work of his lieutenants. For him to have stationed at Mont-Milan, one would need to admit his passage during a march towards Arvernie via the Régordane, while returning from quelling a rebellion in Narbonaise.
Mr Ignon concludes this possibility, which was copied unchecked by Abbé Fourcher and Mr Grasset. However, it is a misreading of the Commentaries to arrive at this conclusion.

Book VII says: "To cross the Cévennes mountain that raises a barrier between the Arvernes and the Helvii, Caesar had the snow that obstructed the road removed, in the hardest season of the year and at the cost of enormous fatigue to his soldiers, and reached the borders of Arvernie."
The error of Mr Ignon and his copyists therefore contradicts the text of the Commentaries. Coming from the Volques Arécomiques (Gard), Caesar did not take the Régordane but entered the land of the Helvii to join his army massed at Aps (Alba Helviorum) and lead it towards Gergovia in a forced march via St-Cirgues-en-Montagne, Revesio, and Brivate, clearing the snow, overcoming obstacles and falling unexpectedly on his enemies commanded by Vercingetorix.
Thus, since Langogne lies neither on the invasion route nor on the retreat path of the legions, Caesar could not have stayed at Mont-Milan. At most, one could admit that some cavalrymen, placed as flank guards of the army, detached themselves to raid and plunder — following the usual methods of war, while also protecting the main body of troops against any surprise attack — and came to grief at the oppidum. Alternatively, during their withdrawal, the legions, who had avoided attacking an overwhelmingly superior enemy, may have halted at Mont-Milan for a necessary rest, while Caesar, relinquishing direct command, hurried away on a forced march to Vienne.

If further considerations were needed, one might advance the impossibility of accommodating an army of 24,000 men plus its impedimenta on a platform of 2 hectares in the heart of winter. We must also agree that the oppidum was only occupied by the Romans at the time of their invasion of the Gabale country. Certainly, it is regrettable to destroy a beautiful legend and to exclude from Langogne the great figure of Caesar, the opponent of the memorable Gallic chief Vercingetorix. Fortunately, there are tenacious reminiscences that help maintain memories, especially when attached to the enigmatic druidic era adorned with its pagan practices — such as the worship of the golden calf in the forest on the slopes of Mont-Milan.

It is known that the simple soul of the Gabale, worshipper of Teutates and Esus, nurtured a passionate love for his home and his fatherland. Exalting ceremonies took place at the time of the invasion, recalled in the episode of Velléda from Chateaubriand: "Upon hearing that Caesar was crossing the Cévennes, the Gabalian warriors, gathered in the Mont forest, plunged into the lake bearing torches that made their weapons sparkle, forming a long procession of infinite sadness. The bards, to the sound of the hrote, sang the praises of the god who was to be buried. The druid sacrificed a victim in whose entrails he foresaw a troubling future, then in an open pit he hid the golden sickle and the objects of worship; the warriors buried their weapons there. Then the druid delivered a speech extolling distress and hope. All swore to preserve their Celtic traditions and to keep their faith in the god Teutates and also in Esus, the invincible, until the day when, delivered from the invader, they would revive their abandoned cult and unearth their war weapons, faithful to their country."

Alas! The druids were persecuted, religion withered, and pagan practices took root. Yet the Gabale retained their memories and the vision of a proscribed religion. The Gallic spirit endured. Despite the edicts of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius, they secretly joined the druid in the forest to practise a cult that leaned towards a sort of paganism through the veneration of certain sculpted animals, among which the bull dominated — both a sacrificial victim and a symbol of power and strength. This bull overshadowed the exotic deities of the Celts. Their sympathy also went to the Grandmother, the Mother of the gods, the Phrygian Cybele, whose worship spread during the time of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus.

The most extravagant manifestation was the taurobole, which consisted of sacrificing a bull over a pit covered with a lattice. The faithful placed beneath received the blood of the victim. They emerged hideous, soiled with blood, but considered washed and purified. These ceremonies attracted great support and were performed before gathered crowds. Individuals, magistrates, decurions, priests of the cult, or galli — emasculated, painted, cutting their flesh, shaking their hair, trampling, contorting — formed a frenetic assembly; a corporation of dendrophores provided the sacred pine carried before the goddess as an emblem, followed by flute players, dancers of Cybele, the attendants of the Grandmother, an irregular, wandering, begging, and suspicious clergy. The festival continued with processions, initiations, and complicated, bizarre rites. It ended with the inauguration of a memorial altar bearing the head of the bull, garlanded and decorated with the sword that had struck it.

The tauroboles attracted the hatred and anger of Christians. Their antagonism was directed against the devotees of Cybele and pursued them at Mont-Milan. St Gregory of Tours preached against this form of paganism, which he compared to the madness of the Hebrews worshipping the golden calf while Moses on Sinai received the Tablets of the Law. The struggle intensified before a cult that was otherwise inexplicable. The Gabalian legend, symbolised by a bull with a powerful head and horns representing strength and courage, raises the question: how did this people come to worship a calf?

The memory remains of a calf raised on a pedestal, surrounded and celebrated by a crowd of idolaters, and also of a Christianity — already widespread, fervent, fanatical — that stirred believers against the practices of an opposing monotheism. It rallied its faithful and hunted down the impious cult. Conflicts of belief led to bloody skirmishes, and the worshippers of the golden calf could only perform their ceremonies at night in the strange setting of the great woods of Mont-Milan. Their devotions continued but degenerated into pitched battles that brought their practices to a halt. The emblem of their cult, too compromising, was buried on the hillside in the hope of being unearthed one day.
Ages have passed; the protagonists of this singular calling have faded without revealing the location of the golden calf's burial, which remains unfound despite, it is said, excavations and searches. The question remains: where is the golden calf of Mont-Milan?
And so the legend of the golden calf has fallen asleep.

It is recognised that Mont-Milan is a mound in the middle of the waters that border it: the Allier, the supposed great river of Aquitaine; and the splashing flow of the Donozau stream crossing the muddy banks of what is called the ancient lake of Ponteyre. But was there ever a lake at Ponteyre?

Historians have studied the Gabale country — among them Cord and Viré, Fourcher, Ignon, Grasset, Lhermet, and Aimeras — who, copying one another, named this lake without worrying about the reality of its existence. Some have spoken poetically of "its deep waves", alluding no doubt to the account of Gregory of Tours: "For three days in a row, on the shores of a Gévaudan lake, the crowd gathered to make libations and sacrifices. They threw into the waters pieces of fabric, wool fleeces, wax cheeses, breads, not to mention richer offerings, and there were feasts and orgies that were finally interrupted by storms caused by angry gods." Others, less verbose, were satisfied to note, in designating the Régordane Way (GR®700), that it passed by the slopes of the oppidum and "bordered the shore of the lake." One of them envisaged a hypothetical agglomeration "in these places, equipped with a sanctuary where devout crowds went on pilgrimage."

Thus is history written. Of this supposed gathering of dwellings, of this sanctuary, there is not the slightest trace. Yet there are footprints that are, so to speak, indelible. The ashes of fires remain visible; debris of pottery, objects of broken or shaped stone or metal, coins and so forth can be discerned. Necropolises, or at least sarcophagi, or simple tumuli mark the presence of men. However, nothing — absolutely nothing — has been discovered to this day. Does the future hold promise of some sensational revelation? Lake dwellings on the lake have been supposed, but not a single stake, not the least piling, has been noticed.

All the aforementioned authors agreed to speak of a "Roman" work employed to open, between the hills of Naussac and Mont-Milan, a breach intended to allow passage to a tiny stream, the Donozau, and at the same time to drain its still waters from the lake of Ponteyre. Considering the enormous labour required to open this breach, one is astonished that astute writers did not perceive the inconceivable nature of this undertaking. Not only is the digging of the valley inadmissible, but with the rudimentary means of transport of the time, where on earth would the debris have been deposited since there is no pile nearby?

And for what purpose would the Romans have undertaken such work, which could only weaken the defence of the oppidum by draining a lake that protected it and removing a fish-rich reservoir precious for their sustenance? One cannot imagine that it was their intention to recover a useless piece of land while so much space remained uncultivated. Other arguments, of a different order, confirm that there was no lake at Ponteyre.

In examining the vast basin that would have contained the lake, one sees, in the beautiful panorama towards Tuilerie, Barre, Bonjour, up to Rocles, cultivated land or meadows resting on the cushioned gneiss of a basaltic flow from the Pliocene volcano — these bear no appearance of lake banks and show not the slightest stratification of sediments resulting from the presence of a water layer. From Rocles to Besses and Eriges stretches a peneplain from the Pleistocene era shaped by the disappearance of the ice age, where not a trace of corrosion manifests, although it is constant on the edges of the moving waters of a lake. The granite cliff, from the Stampian age, which from Eriges to Naussac borders the depression of Gazelle, possesses detrital formations of conglomerates, sandstones, sandy clays, and bright colours, which led legend to say that they were stained with the red of a nosebleed from Gargantua as he journeyed from Montpellier to his homeland of Beauce. Crevices with lowered compartments do not show the stratifications of sediments usually deposited by still waters.

On the other hand, the course of the Donozau shows very pure, pebbly sands of rolled quartz and Bajocian fossil jaspers of the middle Jurassic type, or lower oolite. Its valley is regular with a gentle slope, demonstrating the peaceful course of a stream evacuating its spring waters without risk of torrential flood, through the lowland of a basin that has neither the appearance nor the remnants of a lake. The examination of its meanders shows no stratification, which would otherwise contrast with the muddy banks — simple depressions with crevices lined with rotting vegetation in perfect similarity to peat bottoms. Does not peat occur in flat areas where slow-flowing waters settle? No fossil has been found there. In light of these major, formal reasons, a beautiful legend fades, colliding with the impossible existence of a lake at Ponteyre.