City
Narbone
Narbonne
Listen to the story
Narbone, today Narbonne in southern France, was founded in 118 BC as a colony of Roman citizens, guarding the road between Italy and Spain. Its surname Martius honoured the god Mars, and the town became the capital of the province named after it, Gallia Narbonensis. Caesar refounded it with veterans of his tenth legion. Its shipowners traded wine, grain and British tin, and a mosaic in Ostia still shows one of their freighters at the quay, with a crane and sacks of grain. The map's distance to Béziers seems miscopied: twenty-one Roman miles, where about sixteen fit.