City
Nemuso
Nîmes
Listen to the story
Nemausus grew up around a sacred spring and took its name from the god of that spring, Nemausus, who was worshipped there. Today it is Nîmes, in southern France. It was the chief town of the Celtic Volcae Arecomici, on the ancient road from Italy to Spain that later became the Via Domitia. Augustus made it a Roman colony, probably with Greek veterans of Mark Antony, which is why its coins show a crocodile and a palm branch. In 16 BC it received a new city wall six kilometres long. The Roman writer Pliny tells of a lagoon in its territory where dolphins and people fished together.