The Jesuit Dunod relates that the amphitheatre was to be seen at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the ruined state in which the Alans and Vandals had left it after their successful siege in 406.

It seems to have stood near the present site of the Madeleine.
It was a great satisfaction to find that the Frenchman had himself visited the glaciere which was the object of my search, and was able to give some idea as to the manner of reaching it, for my information on the subject was confined to a vague notice that there was an ice-cave five leagues from Besancon.

As so often happened in other cases, he advised me not to go to it, but rather, if I must see a cave, to go to the Grotto of Ocelles,[30] a collection of thirty or more caverns and galleries near the Doubs, below Besancon.

Seeing, however, that I was bent on visiting the glaciere, he advised me not to go on Sunday, for the Cardinal Archbishop had ordered the Trappists at the Chartreuse near not to receive guests on that day; while Saturday, he thought, was almost as bad, for nothing better than an omelette could be obtained on days of abstinence.

Saturday, then, was clearly the day to be chosen.
The first sight of Besancon explains at once why Caesar was so anxious to forestall Ariovistus by occupying Vesontio, although the hill on which the citadel stands is not so striking as the similar hill at Salins, and the engines of modern warfare would promptly print their telegrams on every stone and man in the place, from the neighbouring heights.