Ancient Nemausus

Nîmes Arena

Here you are in front of the Nîmes Arena, a Roman amphitheatre built around 90 AD, probably during the reign of Domitian. The ellipse measures about 133 metres by 101, and stands 21 metres high. The façade lines up 60 arches on each of its two levels.

290 m to the next stop

Musée de la Romanité

Here you are in front of the Museum of Roman History, the Musée de la Romanité, facing the Arena. Opened on 2 June 2018, it was designed by the architect Elizabeth de Portzamparc. Look at its façade: a pleated glass drape whose blades recall a mosaic, answering the stone arches of the amphitheatre.

820 m to the next stop

Porte d’Auguste

Here you are in front of the Porte d’Auguste, the Gate of Augustus, built around 16 BC during the reign of Augustus. It was once called the Arles Gate. It was one of the main entrances to the Roman colony of Nemausus: the Via Domitia, which linked Italy to Spain, entered the town here.

750 m to the next stop

Maison Carrée

Here you are in front of the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple built during the reign of Augustus and completed around the years 2 and 3 AD. It is one of the best preserved Roman temples. It was dedicated to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, the adopted sons of Augustus, known as the princes of youth.

530 m to the next stop

Castellum aquae

Here you are in front of the castellum aquae, on rue de la Lampèze. This is where the water of the Roman aqueduct of Nîmes arrived, after a journey of around 50 kilometres from the Eure spring, across bridges and through tunnels, including the famous Pont du Gard. This water tower was not used to store water but to distribute it.

730 m to the next stop

Tour Magne

Here you are in front of the Tour Magne, at the top of Mont Cavalier. It is the most imposing remnant of the very long Roman wall of Nîmes. But its story begins before Rome: in the third century BC, a pre-Roman tower 18 metres high already stood here.

460 m to the next stop

Temple of Diana

Here you are in front of the Temple of Diana, in the Jardins de la Fontaine. Despite its name, nothing proves that this building was dedicated to Diana: the name has no known archaeological or historical basis. Built in the first century AD, it was part of a sanctuary dedicated to Augustus.

320 m to the next stop

Jardins de la Fontaine

Here you are in the Jardins de la Fontaine, around the spring that gave birth to Nîmes. This karst spring drew inhabitants as early as the Iron Age, in the sixth century BC. In Roman times, a great sanctuary, the Augusteum, occupied the site; the Temple of Diana is a still visible remnant of it.

1.3 km to the next stop

Porte de France

You are standing in front of the Porte de France, a Roman gate built in the first century before Christ. It belonged to the wall that surrounded Nemausus, the Nîmes of antiquity. According to the tourist office, this rampart from the time of Augustus was about 7 kilometres round, protected 220 hectares, and its walls stood 9 metres high.

270 m to the next stop

Archaeological garden, Musée de la Romanité

You are now in the archaeological garden of the Museum of Roman History, the Musée de la Romanité, opposite the Arena. To get here, you may have crossed the museum by its internal street. This street is not laid out at random: it follows the line of the rampart that the emperor Augustus had built around the town in about 15 before the common era, a wall more than six kilometres long, flanked by eighty towers.