Lugdunum Batavorum

Lugdunum Batavorum (Λουγόδεινον, Ptol. 2.9.4: Leiden). The two elements Lug and dun appear in the name of this remote city and in two other Gallic names, which is one evidence of the Celtic race having once occupied the flat country about the outlets of the Rhine. The Roman Itins. have marked a road running from Leiden through Cologne to Vemania (Immenstadt) on the Upper Danube Circle of Bavaria. The routes are not the same all through, but the commencement of the road and the termination are the same. This route in fact followed the basin of the Rhine from the Lake of Constanz to the low and sandy shores of the North Sea.

The words Caput Germaniarum placed before the name Lugdunum in the Antonine Itin. probably do not mean that it was the capital of the Germaniae, for this was certainly not so, but that it was the point where the two provinces called Germaniae commenced on this northern limit. It has been supposed that Leiden in the province of Holland is not the Roman Lugdunum, because no Roman remains have been found there, though the absence of them would certainly not be conclusive against Leiden. But remains have been dug up in the neighbourhood of Leiden, and an inscription of the time of Septimius Severus. (Ukert, Gallien, p. 534.)

[G.L]