. The development of the actual site of Paris began with the Celtic settlement on the island in the River Seine known today as the Île-de-la-Cité. The Roman city, known as Lutetia or Lutece, grew up on the left bank, where vestiges of the Roman baths and arena can still be seen. The site, a large natural basin ringed by hills and close to the confluence of the Marne, the Bièvre, and, farther downstream, the Oise, was on one of the major north-south Roman roads. Lutece was a major market center for agricultural goods grown in the swampy lowlands, the marais, running in an arc around the north side along the old course of the Seine.
The late-antique city consisted of three parts, the Île-de-la-Cité, fortified to protect the commercial docks; the old Roman quarter on the left bank, where the forum was enclosed behind protective walls; and the newly established commercial quarter on the right bank, also behind walls.
Bridges connected the three sections. Archaeological finds indicate that the Île-de-la-Cité may have been divided even then between the religious sector to the east and the seat of secular power, site of later royal palaces, to the west. Christianity reached Lutece in the 3rd century with the arrival of Denis, the Apostle of Gaul and first bishop of Paris. Tradition and practice suggest the earliest church was outside the Roman city, perhaps on the site of the first Christian cemetery, later Saint-Marcel. The discovery in 1964 during excavations in front of the present cathedral of Notre-Dame of the bottom of a glass cup with the chi-rho indicates the presence of a church on the site by ca. 360, about the same time that the Roman name, Lutece, was replaced by the place-name Paris, derived from the old Celtic tribe of the Parisi.
By the early 6th century, four churches made up the cathedral group, including the basilica of Saint-Étienne, whose western foundations have been excavated under the square in front of Notre-Dame, the baptistery of Saint-Jean-le-Ronde (destroyed) to the north of Saint-Étienne, the church of Saint-Denis-du-Pas (destroyed) east of the
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