There are signs of permanent habitation in the area of Strasbourg dating back to the Stone Age. The Celts, who had settled there prior to the Roman occupation, built dams and walls to counter the floods of the Rhine.
In the 12 BC, the Romans conquered the area and turned the settlement into one of fifty cities built by the Roman general Claudius Drusus, to guard the empire’s easternmost frontier in Europe. Under the Roman Empire, Strasbourg – then called Argentorate – formed part of a zone of contact along the Rhine that attracted both Romans and a diverse mix of non-Romans.
Strasbourg’s post-Roman development as Startiburgum, ‘the fortress of the roads’ began to take form in Carolingian times, as the site of the well-known Oaths of Strasbourg in 842.
During the late Middle Ages, the burghers of Strasbourg asserted their independence from princes and bishops, even as the city remained part of the Holy Roman Empire. On November 18, 1262, Richard of Cornwall King of Germany confirmed the privileges of Strasbourg as a self-governing imperial city to the Holy Roman Empire.
In the 16th century Strasbourg was a prominent German speaking city in the Roman Empire and the see of a Roman bishop.
Strasbourg’s Protestant status was amended in 1681 when it was annexed by Louis XIV. The transition was bloodless, the culmination of a period of French expansion throughout Alsace.
City of Strasbourg under Roman Empire
