Béziers I.La Prèmiere Rhòde d'Occident. Hommage à Christian Olive

The Greek phase of Béziers, which we identify with the archaic Rhòde of textual sources, was unknown until the first large excavations (1984-1986). Then, small and large other operations collected a lot of data. The start is currently set around 625, or at the latest in the last quarter of the 7th century, and the abandonment around 300 a.C. Preceded by a fairly clear precolonial dynamic, this Greek city, still ignored not so long ago, im-posed the revision of several former concepts and historical notions because its name and other aspects highlight the priority of the Rhodians / Dorians in the colonization of the mediterranean North-West, as sources report, perhaps organized from Sicily, before that of the Phocaeans. It experienced a strong development (up to 35-40 ha of urban area) and became a real polis, in all likelihood the only one along this coast gathering all the criteria useful for defining it. It had interactions with the natives, the Phocaeans-Massalians, the continental celtic hin-terland and undoubtedly also with the Punics and the Iberians; founded other cities (Agde I, possibly Iberian Rhòde and Pyrène / Collioure); produced, among other things, a lot of ceramics, as evidenced by the unearthed workshops of which the number is without comparison along this coast, and occupied with its trade and influence the Western space.