Augustodunum, Archaeological site in Autun, France.

Augustodunum is an archaeological site in Autun with an excavated necropolis from Roman times that contains over 230 graves with mausoleums, wooden structures, tile buildings, sandstone sarcophagi, and lead coffins. The remains show the range of burial practices and the skilled craftsmanship put into funeral monuments from that period.

Augustus founded Augustodunum in 16–13 BCE to replace Bibracte, the Aedui oppidum whose inhabitants gradually moved to the new city. It became the capital of the Aedui and, apart from Lugdunum, the most important city of Gallia Lugdunensis, called 'soror et aemula Romae'. In 21 CE the Aeduan Julius Sacrovir seized it during his revolt and killed himself after defeat. Besieged for seven months in 270 and sacked by the usurper Victorinus, it was rebuilt under the tetrarchy; on 17 January 350 Magnentius was proclaimed emperor there.

The name Augustodunum combines Augustus with the Celtic -dun, meaning fortress. Tacitus wrote that the noblest youth of Gaul gathered at its schools, where Greek was known and teachers came from Italy and Greece. The rhetorician Eumenius defended the Menian schools and left Burgundy an orator of great reputation.

The excavated area lies on the slope of a hill above the Arroux, split between a lower and an upper town. The theatre, with its 148 m diameter and about 15,000 seats, has had its orchestra and some tiers cleared, while the second theatre near the so-called Temple of Janus is less exposed. Much of the 6 km Roman wall circuit and its gates can be followed on foot through Autun.

Augustodunum's name combines Augustus with the Celtic -dun, meaning fortress, so the city was literally "Augustus's fortress". Its honorary wall, 6,025 metres long with 57 towers, ranked third in Gaul after Nîmes and Trier. The so-called Temple of Janus owes its name to a 16th-century misreading of the place name la Genetoye, which actually referred to broom bushes growing there; the deity worshipped is still unknown.