Autun

French town in the département of Saône-et-Loire, 80 km/50 mi northwest of Mâcon, on the River Arroux; population (1999) 16,400. It has metallurgical, furniture, and oil-shale industries; tourism is important. Roman remains include a pyramid, a theatre, and two gates. There is also a cathedral, mainly of the 12th century.

Autun was a city of Roman Gaul, known as Augustodunum, with a school of rhetoric. Destroyed in 240 by Tetricus, and rebuilt by Constantine the Great, the city was was successively sacked by the Vandals (406), the Burgundians (414), the Huns (451), the Franks (534), the Arabs (739), the Normans (1095), and the English (1379).

The cathedral has a sculptured scene over the front entrance by the Romanesque sculptor Gislebertus, showing the Last Judgement (about 1130).