Facade from the Roman Basilica at Nyon, Vaud

This is a massive element from the vast Basilica of the Roman Colonia at Nyon on Lake Geneva.

Nyon was Colonia Iulia Equestris and was where Julius Caesar settled his veteran Roman Citizen cavalry after they had completed their service. It is doubly interesting in being a colony of cavalry and not legionaries, and being founded between 50 and 44BC, the date of Caesar's assassination.

Caesar had destroyed the tribe of the Helvetii at the opening of his Gallic War, and Nyon has an extremely pleasant situation on the shores of Lake Geneva. Today the area is cultivated with fruit farms and vineyards leading unto the slopes of the Jura. In Roman times the whole terrain from Geneva to Lausanne was centuriated - that is divided by Roman surveyors into parcels of land for Caesar's veterans and their descendants.

It was also a strategic site commanding the Eastern approaches to Gaul down the Rhone valley.

The Colonia of Nyon pre-dated Lyon and Augst in Gallia and Germania and was clearly designed as a beacon of Roman Citizen civilisation. The buildings were built on a grand scale and this fragment comes from the Basilica which was 62m x 26m in plan and c25m high, itself part of a vast Forum, Temple and Basilica complex that measured 130m x 90m.

This is one of many remarkable survivals in the Roman Museum in Nyon.