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Béziers (bezje; Besièrs) is a subprefecture of the Hérault department in the Occitanie region of Southern France. Every August Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, which is centred on bullfighting. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event. The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about from the Mediterranean coast and southwest of Montpellier. At Béziers, the Canal du Midi passes over the river Orb by means of the Pont-canal de l'Orb, an aqueduct claimed to be the first of its kind. Béziers is one of the oldest cities in France. Research published in March 2013 shows that Béziers dates from 575 BCE, making it older than Agde (Greek Agathe Tyche, founded in 525 BCE) and slightly younger than Marseille (Greek Massalia, founded in 600 BCE). The site has been occupied since Neolithic times, before the influx of Celts. Roman Betarra was on the road that linked Provence with Iberia. The Romans refounded the city as a new colonia for veterans in 36–35 BCE and called it Colonia Julia Baeterrae Septimanorum. Stones from the Roman amphitheatre were used to construct the city wall during the third century. Béziers exported wine to Rome. A dolia discovered in an excavation near Rome is marked, "I am a wine from Baeterrae and I am five years old." Another is simply marked, "white wine of Baeterrae." Béziers was conquered by the Muslims and remained part of Islamic Iberia between 720 and 752. From the 10th to the 12th centuries, Béziers was the centre of a Viscountship of Béziers. The viscounts ruled most of the coastal plain around Béziers, including the town of Agde. They also controlled the major east–west route through Languedoc, which roughly follows the old Roman Via Domitia, with the two key bridges over the Orb at Béziers and over the Hérault at Saint-Thibéry. After the death of Viscount William around 990, the viscounty passed to his daughter Garsendis and her husband, Count Raimond-Roger of Carcassonne (d. 1012). It was then ruled by their son Peter-Raimond (d. c. 1060) and his son Roger (d.

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Related concepts (23)

Aude

Aude (od; ˈawðe) is a department in Southern France, located in the Occitanie region and named after the river Aude. The departmental council also calls it "Cathar Country" (French: Pays cathare) after a group of religious dissidents active in the 12th to 14th centuries. Its prefecture is Carcassonne and its subprefectures are Limoux and Narbonne. As of 2019, it had a population of 374,070. Aude is a frequent feminine French given name in Francophone countries, deriving initially from Aude or Oda, a wife of Bertrand, Duke of Aquitaine, and mother of Eudo, brother of Saint Hubertus.

Hérault

Hérault (eʁo; Erau, eˈɾaw) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault River, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,175,623 in 2019. Hérault is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc. At the beginning of the 20th century, viticulture in the wine-growing region was devastated by a slump in sales combined with disease affecting the vines.

Septimania

Septimania is a historical region in modern-day Southern France. It referred to the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed to the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. During the Early Middle Ages, the region was variously known as Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia, or Narbonensis. The territory of Septimania roughly corresponds with the modern French former administrative region of Languedoc-Roussillon that merged into the new administrative region of Occitanie.