Mediolanum

The city was settled by a Celtic tribe belonging to the Insubres group and belonging to the Golasecca culture under the name Medhelanon[1] around 590 BC,[2] conquered by the Romans in 222 BC, who Latinized the name of the city into Mediolanum, and developed into a key centre of Western Christianity and informal capital of the Western Roman Empire.

[3][4][5] The city was settled by a Celtic tribe belonging to the Insubres group and belonging to the Golasecca culture around 590 BC under the name Medhelanon[1][2] According to the legend reported by Livy, the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; this Bellovesus was said to have founded Mediolanum (in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, according to this legend).

A large stone wall encircled the city in Caesar's time, and later was expanded in the late third century AD, by Maximian.

There were Christian communities in Mediolanum, which contributed its share of martyrs during the persecutions,[13] but the first bishop of Milan who has a firm historical presence is Merocles, who was at the Council of Rome of 313.

In general, the Late Empire encouraged the development of the applied arts in Mediolanum, with ivory and silver work being common in public building projects.

In 452, it was besieged again by Attila, but the real break with its imperial past came in 538, during the Gothic War, when Mediolanum was laid to waste by Uraia, a nephew of Vitiges, King of the Goths, with great loss of life.

Mediolanum superimposed on modern Milan. The lighter rectangle in the centre, slightly to the right, represents the modern Cathedral Square , while the modern Castle Sforzesco is located at the top left, just outside the route of the Roman walls
Wooden model preserved at the Civic Archaeological Museum of Milan showing a reconstruction of the imperial Mediolanum
A section of Roman wall (11 m high) with a 24-sided tower
Ruins of the Emperor's palace 45°27′54.43″N 09°10′50.15″E  /  45.4651194°N 9.1805972°E  / 45.4651194; 9.1805972 in Milan. Here Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan .
Roman solidus coin (picturing Emperor Constantius II ) struck at the Mediolanum mint , circa 354-357 A.D.
Arena games: ivory cup depicting staged hunts and chariot races, found in Milan, 4th-5th century.
Colonne di San Lorenzo in front of Basilica di San Lorenzo
Map of ancient Roman Milan (Mediolanum) (3rd-5th centuries AD) indicating the Roman walls and gates of Milan, the Roman forum of Milan, the Roman theater of Milan, the Roman amphitheater of Milan, the Roman circus of Milan , the area of the Roman imperial palace in Milan (in lighter pink), the Roman mint of Milan, the Erculean baths, the imperial mausoleum of Milan, the via Porticata with the triumphal arch, the Roman food warehouses of Milan (lat. horrea), the Roman river port of Milan, the Roman castles of Milan and the early Christian basilicas of Milan