Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity and the blessing of the gods, is founded in 43 BCE by Lucius Munatius Plancus to serve as the capital of the Roman province Gallia Lugdunensis.

The city will become increasingly referred to as Lugdunum (and occasionally Lugudunum) by the end of the first century CE.

For three hundred years after its foundation Lugdunum will be the most important city in northwestern Europe, being also the birthplace of two emperors, Claudius and Caracalla.

During the Middle Ages, Lugdunum will transform by natural sound change to Lyon, the name it bears today.

Caius Julius Vindex, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, rebels against Nero's tax policy in late 67 or early 68, Lucius Verginius Rufus, the governor of Germania Superior, is ordered to put down Vindex's rebellion.

In an attempt to gain support from outside his own province, Vindex calls upon Servius Sulpicius Galba, the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, to join the rebellion and further, to declare himself emperor in opposition to Nero.

The cosmopolitan hospitality to eastern religions may have allowed the first attested Christian community in Gaul to be established in Lugdunum in the second century, led by a bishop with the eastern name of Pothinus.

In 177 it also becomes the first in Gaul to suffer persecution and martyrdom.

The event is described in a letter from the Christians in Lugdunum to counterparts in Asia, later retrieved and preserved by Eusebius.

There is no record of a cause or a triggering event but mob violence against the Christians in the streets culminates in a public interrogation in the forum by the tribune and town magistrates.

The Christians publicly confess their faith and are imprisoned until the arrival of Legate of Lugdonensis, who gives his authority to the persecution.

About forty of the Christians are martyred—dying in prison, beheaded, or killed by beasts in the arena as a public spectacle.

Among the latter are Bishop Pothinus, Blandina, Doctor Attalus, Ponticus, and the deacon Sanctus of Vienne.

Their ashes are thrown into the Rhône.

Nevertheless, the Christian community either survives or is reconstituted, and under Bishop Irenaeus it continued to grow in size and influence.

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, writes a five-volume work in the second century, On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, today also called On the Detection and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So Called (Greek: lit. "Elenchus and Overturning of the Pseudonymous Knowledge"), commonly called Against Heresies (Latin: Adversus haereses).

The final phrase "of knowledge falsely so-called" (Greek: tes pseudonymou gnoseos genitive case; or nominative case pseudonymos gnosis) is a quotation of the apostle Paul's warning against "knowledge falsely so-called" in 1 Timothy 6:20.

Due to its reference to Eleutherus as the current bishop of Rome, the work is usually dated to about 180.

In it, Irenaeus identifies and describes several schools of gnosticism and contrasts their beliefs with what he describes as catholic, orthodox Christianity.

Only fragments of the original Greek text exist, but a complete copy exists in a wooden Latin translation, made shortly after its publication in Greek, and Books IV and V are also present in a literal Armenian translation.

Irenaeus’s purpose in writing Against Heresies is to refute the teachings of various Gnostic groups; apparently, several Greek merchants had begun an oratorial campaign praising the pursuit of "gnosis" in Irenaeus' bishopric.

Another popular theory states that a group of Gnostics known as the Valentinians remained part of the early Christian church, taking part in regular church celebrations despite their radical differences.

It is also said that Gnostics would secretly meet outside of regular church activity where they would discuss their "secret knowledge" and scripture that pertains to it.

As bishop, Irenaeus felt obligated to keep a close eye on the Valentinians and to safeguard the church from them.

In order to fulfill this duty, Irenaeus educated himself and became well informed of Gnostic doctrines and traditions.

This eventually led to the compilation of his treatise.

It appears however, that the main reason Irenaeus had taken on this work was because he felt that Christians in Asia and Phrygia especially need his protection from Gnostics, for they do not have as many bishops to oversee and help keep problems like this under control (probably only one bishop was assigned to a number of communities).

Therefore, due to the issue of distance between Irenaeus (who is in the western Roman province of Gaul) and the orthodox Christian community of Asia, Irenaeus finds that writing this treatise will be the best way to offer them guidance.

Against Heresies was the best surviving contemporary description of Gnosticism until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in 1945.

This publication is historically important as the dating of the publication is irrefutable and the document is among the earliest non-controversial confirming documentation for many of the sayings attributed by early Christian writers to Jesus and to the Letters of Paul.

Severus, Niger having been neutralized, turns on his ally in Britannia—though it is likely that Clodius Albinus sees he will be the next target and is already preparing for war.

Albinus crosses to Gaul in 195 CE, where the provinces are also sympathetic to him, and sets up at Lugdunum.

Increasing friction between Severus and his rival-turned-heir Clodius Albinus had culminated in the latter’s reiterating his imperial claim.

Albinus had crossed with his legions to Gaul in early 195 and settled with his army near Lugdunum, where he has had himself proclaimed Augustus and makes plans to counter Severus.

Under his control, the Lugdunum mint issues coins celebrating his "clemency", as well as one dedicated to the "Genius of Lugdunum."

He is joined by an army under Lucius Novius Rufus, the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis.

They successfully attack the German troops of Virius Lupus, Legatus of one of the German provinces, but were unable to deter them from supporting Severus.

Severus again attacks Clodius Albinus to the northwest of the city, defeating the latter’s army on the nineteenth of February 197 in the bloody and decisive Battle of Lugdunum.

Dio Cassius describes three hundred thousand men involved in the battle: although this is one of the largest battles involving Roman armies known, this number is assumed to be an exaggeration.

The actual size of Severus’s army may be closer to seventy-five thousand men, mostly composed of Illyrian, Moesian and Dacian legions.

Albinus commits suicide in a house near the Rhône; his head is sent to Rome as a warning to his supporters.

His defeated cohorts are dissolved and the victorious legions punish those in Lugdunum who had supported Albinus, by confiscation, banishment, or execution.

The city is plundered or at least severely damaged by the battle.

Legio I Minervia will remain camped in Lugdunum from 198 to 211.

Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that Lugdunum never fully recovers from the devastation of this battle.

Severus departs for Italy and the East to resume the war against Parthia.

Anatolian-born theologian Irenaeus, in his youth a disciple of Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, later serves as bishop of Lugdunum (Lyon) in Gaul.

A man of peace and of tradition, he devotes his major efforts in combating gnosticism, writing his great work, Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), to this end.

In opposition to the teachings of gnostics such as Basilides and Valentinus, Irenaeus develops the doctrine of recapitulation (anakephalaiosis) of all things in Jesus Christ.

A champion of the apostolic tradition, Irenaeus works to systematize the religious and theological traditions of the church.

As a participant in the Quartodeciman controversy over the date for the observance of Easter, Irenaeus argues for diversity of practice in the unity of faith.

Dying around 202, Irenaeus leaves several extant works (later Christians regard him as the father of Catholic theology).

Proculus and Bonosus, the respective commanders of Gaul and Germany, revolt in 280, declaring themselves joint emperors, according to the Historia Augusta.

The extent of popular support for the rebels is unclear, though it may have reached as far as Spain.

Probably Proculus has family connection with the Franks, to whom he will turn in vain when his bid for imperial power is failing.

A native of Albingaunum (modern Albenga in Liguria), though he is accounted a noble, his ancestors had been brigands and are the source of his vast wealth.

Proculus is able to arm two thousand slaves of his own latifundia after seizing imperial office in the West.

He is married to a woman named Vituriga, who was given the nickname "Samso" for her capabilities (considered "unwomanly" by the author of Historia Augusta), and at the time of his usurpation, he has one son, Herennianus, aged four.

Proculus is an ambitious soldier, who had commanded more than one legion as tribune; when in 280 he is asked by the people of Lugdunum, who had started a rebellion against Emperor Probus to take the purple, accepts, proclaiming himself joint emperor with Bonosus.

"He was, nevertheless, of some benefit to the Gauls, for he crushed the Alamanni—who then were still called Germans—and not without illustrious glory, though he never fought save in brigand-fashion" (Historia Augusta).

Maximus Magnus immediately crosses to the continent to confront Gratian, who, upon hearing that Maximus had been proclaimed emperor in Britain, had rushed into Gaul to intercept the usurper.

Maximus wins over his rival's advancing troops, who desert their emperor.

Seeking to escape beyond the Alps, Gratian is treacherously murdered on August 25 in Lugdunum, Lugdunensis (now Lyon, France) by the Goth Andragathius, Maximus's magister equitum (cavalry commander and lieutenant).

Ausonius retires to his estates near Burdigala.