extent and elegance show how important and wealthy the colony had become. Stone terraces, courts, and promenades, ornamented with urns and statues, are now built upon the site, and the water of the spring is allowed to overflow into the apartments and chambers of the ancient Baths. The gardens are very beautiful, the brilliant white of the stone balustrade, terraces, and steps, contrasting with and adding to the beauty of the thickly wooded hill that rises at the back. After the gardens at Arles, and even Avignon, this garden of the Fountain seems fresh and joyous; there is an air of perpetual youth about it which the genii of the spring seem unwilling to abandon.
The statues that adorned the place in the Roman days have vanished; here, as elsewhere, the collector and vandal have had their way with the smaller objects of art, but the place is not dead nor deserted. Succeeding ages so felt the beauty of the spot that they have adorned it with the best works they could produce.
The habit the ancients had of throwing small coins into these waters to propitiate the gods and goddesses to whom the spot was sacred, accounts for the almost inexhaustible supply of coins that have been and still are discovered in the “Spring.” Thousands of these have found their way into museums and private collections, and amongst them the curious “pied du sanglier,” a coin which has puzzled many numismatists.
The coin, or medal, has one of its edges extended or drawn out into a shape resembling the leg of a boar. The obverse of these coins has the heads of Augustus and Agrippa embossed upon it, with the letters IMP ... P.P ... DIVIF ..., and on the reverse is a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with the letters COL. to the left and NEM. to the right, separated by the palm-tree. It is thought that the boar’s leg and foot on these coins, or medals, may be some special compliment to the Gauls, to whom the boar was sacred. The inscription on the coin is common enough, and the heads of Augustus and Agrippa are of course meant for the heads of Octavius Augustus, the grand-nephew of Julius Cæsar, Emperor in 27 B.C., and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the great general who was the life-long friend and son-in-law of Augustus.
He was a great benefactor to Nîmes, and built the gigantic Pont du Gard which brought the water into the town, the spring of Nemausus being too sacred to use for drinking and domestic purposes. It is in compliment to Agrippa that the crocodile tied to the palm-tree is stamped on the reverse of these coins, symbolic of the subjugation of the Egyptian power when Antony was defeated at Actium. This device of the palm-tree and crocodile has been adopted as the arms of the town. Agrippa was a warrior and organiser of the first order, and the honours that his friend the Emperor showered upon him were no more than he deserved, for Rome owes to him its Pantheon, and Nîmes its Pont du Gard.
The brilliance of Nîmes at the beginning of the Christian era was unrivalled in the whole of Gaul. During this epoch, buildings of the most splendid character sprang up on all sides, until, in the time of Antoninus Pius (whose father was a Roman Consul in Nemausus), the great Arena was erected.
The Maison Carrée, which has for centuries excited the admiration of the civilised world, is the finest classic temple extant. Built during the first years of the Christian era, it was dedicated to the two sons of Agrippa, Caius and Lucius, who were adopted by their grandfather, the Emperor Augustus, at their father’s death. The youths both died young, and without accomplishing anything worthy of record, but as long as the Maison Carrée stands their names will go down to posterity.
