All the plates in this number are concerned with the Roman cities of Nemausus (Nîmes), Arelate (Arles), and Arausio (Orange). In the ancient writers references to these places are strangely infrequent, though Pliny throws some light on the advanced romanization of the district: ‘Agrorum cultu, virorum morumque dignatione, amplitudine opum, nulli provinciarum postferenda breviterque Italia verius quam provincia’ (H.N. iii. 31). He also tells us that there was in Nemausiensi agro a pool, Laterra, where dolphins fished with the natives! (H.N. ix. 8.) From Suetonius, moreover, we gather that the Imperial Cult, early established in Gallia Narbonensis, was not always popular, for the folk of Nemausus overthrew the imagines and statues of Tiberius even in his lifetime (Tib. 13). In the same book we are told that Tiberius' father was sent to found coloniae at Arelate and Narbo (Tib. 4), and Pliny (H.N. iii. 4) declares that these were recruited from veterans of the Tenth and Sixth Legions.

Both these cities were flourishing before Tiberius succeeded Augustus, and Agrippa especially stamped his mark on Provence. Arausio was already famous for the battle there in the second century B.C. with the Cimbri and Teutones. Arelate appears to have maintained its importance for centuries: there was even a suggestion, in the fifth century, that it should be the Imperial capital city (Ausonius had described it, some time before, as ‘Gallulam Romam’).

It was natural that the arts should flourish among a people as cultured as the Gauls. Varro, writing of the natives of these parts, says that they were ‘trilingues, quod et Graece loquuntur et Latine et Gallice’ (ap. Isidorum, Etym. xv. 1. 63), and much valuable information on their literary achievements will be found in Mayor's notes on the Gallia… facunda of Juvenal xv. 111.