NÎMES
VII
NÎMES
Nîmes, unlike its contemporary and neighbour Arles, has contrived to flourish even in a prosaic and commercial age. Its industries, light and refined in character, the weaving of silk and the pressing of the grapes, are not too violently opposed to its ancient traditions of beauty and luxurious living. Like Arles, it has an early origin, but of a religious rather than a mundane order. The Celtic inhabitants of Gaul fixed upon the site, and gave it a name which in the language of its founders signifies a spring. The Romans early in the first century appreciated and coveted the spot, which was soon occupied and named Nemausus. The mysterious spring that wells up at the foot of the little mountain Cavalier, sacred to the ancient Celts, assumed great importance in the estimation of the newcomers. Its fame spread far and wide, and much of the wealth and ingenuity of Rome was spent in building and beautifying the city that rapidly grew up from the ruins of the Celtic town which nestled round the spot where the “God of the fountain” resided and was worshipped.
The Celtic tribes, who were dispossessed or conquered by the invading Romans, were far from being untutored savages. They knew and bartered with the Greek colonists at Arles and Marseilles, and Celtic coins and bronzes discovered in the neighbourhood of Nîmes give abundant evidence of strong Hellenic influences.
The wondrous spring which gave rise to the ancient city still gushes out in an inexhaustible volume of water, which finds its outlet through canals into the Vistre. The Baths, built by Agrippa in the first century at the foot of the hill, were supplied by the sacred well, and their