Chapter 2: Romans and Reinsches on the Rhine

Location, location, location. The name Strasbourg comes from German, meaning basically ‘fort at the crossroads’. But long before this name appeared, the area was a major regional intersection—a place that people of all tribes traversed going North-South between the Iberian peninsula and Northern Europe, as well as East-West across the center of the continent. There are indications of humans in the area as long as 600,000 years ago, and evidence of a permanent settlement around 1,000 BCE on the land of modern-day Strasbourg.

The history becomes more concrete with the establishment of a Roman camp, called Argentoratum, by 12 BCE. Argentoratum served as an important outpost of Imperial Roman Army legions under Emperors Caesar and Augustus, among others, and already had an estimated 10,000 inhabitants by 20 CE.

On their way to middle school every day, Big Eyes and Sashay ride by a fountain erected in recent times in honor of Argentoratum at the northern edge of what was the fortified camp, near a site where many artifacts including pieces of an old temple were unearthed.

The Romans had cleared and built a grand esplanade as a gathering place near this spot, which—now known as the Place de Broglie—remains similar in its layout and usage to this day. A few minutes’ walk from our apartment, we often see wedding parties spilling out of City Hall onto the square, and we sometimes browse the outdoor market that springs up here twice a week. I like to superimpose in my mind’s eye an image of the same place 2,000 years ago.

I accompanied Smiley's’ class to Strasbourg’s archeological museum to learn more about Argentoratum, and we got to examine a mock-up of the old camp’s placement, roads and buildings. We also got to see the glassware and pottery that the Romans used before Argentoratum was ravaged by Attila the Hun in 451 CE. It took two centuries after the Huns’ visit for the residents to rebuild.

According to the history books, the people who gradually reassembled the city from VI to VIII centuries were a multicultural, polyglot mix from here, there and everywhere around Europe. Which is also still true today. Anyone who has seen pictures of its architecture can guess that Strasbourg has changed hands between the Germans and the French a few times. It also served as a symbolic locale for European peacemaking and rebuilding after WWII. Today, Strasbourg is home to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, making it one of the few world cities that houses preeminent international headquarters without being the country's capital (like New York and Geneva). We ride our bikes by those institutions daily on our way to Smiley's’ trilingual European School, and the sleek and funky contemporary architecture of those modern buildings warrants its own post another time.

Being a language enthusiast, I love that I can overhear conversations on any given day in Strasbourg in French, German, Alsatian, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Wolof and English. I also appreciate being in a place where not being native is not at all unusual. It is a great, big melting pot of cultures, languages and people that—kind of like me—has never quite been beholden to any one place. This week, there is an outdoor art exhibition all around town; at the Place de Broglie, I was elated to discover this work by contemporary Alsacien sculptor, Patrick Bastardoz, inspired by the Tower of Babel, and also the way its placement echoes the 19th century architecture around it (see picture at top of article).

Strasbourg’s proximity to the Rhine River has been a big draw for people throughout history. The second longest river in Europe (after the Danube), the Rhine has been a major transportation and communication route for centuries, and it marked the Northern frontier of the Roman Empire. Historic Strasbourg is located on an island in the river Ill, which connects to the nearby Rhine; over time, the Ill has been sculpted and directed into a series of canals that encircle and traverse the city. The “Grand Île” (big island) of Strasbourg is a UNESCO World Heritage site. And now, our family gets to live on it, overlooking a tranquil stretch of canal/river that formed a natural moat back in Roman times.

While I have never had a very strong attachment to family heritage, or being from a specific place, or the concept of destiny or anything like that, I think it is kind of a fun fact that my family name, Reinsch, comes from Rhein-isch, as in the people who live by the Rhine. My father and uncle were born in Southern Germany, not a far drive from here and migrated to the US as children—making me a first generation American on my father’s side. Their mother, who was adopted by a well-to-do German family, was supposedly (and glamorously) the biological offspring of a Polish actress and a French soldier. So I think it is quaint that I would accidentally find my way back to live in this ancient Rhine-isch, French, Germanic, multicultural bastion.