Marseilles was not only an important Roman
seaport, but its earliest foundations date perhaps from Phoenician times,
and certainly do from the age when Greeks were building temples at Paestum
and Girgenti. Rome got her first foothold in Marseilles as a consequence
of the Punic wars; and in 125 B.C. acquired a province (Provincia Romana)
reaching from the Alps to the Rhone, and southward to the sea, with Aix as
its first capital and Arles its second. Caesar in 58 B.C. found on the
Seine a tribe of men called Parisii, whose chief village, Lutetia, stood
where now rises Notre Dame.
Lutetia afterward became a residence of Roman emperors. Constantius
Chlorus spent some time there, guarding the empire from Germans and
Britons, while Julian the Apostate built there for himself a palace and
extensive baths, of which remains still exist in Paris. In that palace
afterward lived Pepin le Bref ("mayor of the palace"), son of Charles
Martell, and father of the great Charles. Romans built there an
amphitheater seating ten thousand people, of which remains are still
visible.
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