Nîmes: first the Romans, then denim

WHAT would have become of Ireland if the Romans had invaded us? We’d have ended up speaking Latin, building temples and amphitheatres and sponsoring gladiators to fight each other for our entertainment.

That’s the conclusion I came to after a recent visit to Nîmes in the south of France.
Long before the Romans came up the road from Italy, a Celtic (Gaulish) tribe had settled around a spring that they named after one of their gods, Nemausus.
When the Romans arrived, they skirmished with the local tribe, quickly asserted their superiority, and left them to their own devices while they built the beginnings of a town which would be settled by veterans of the legions.
After a generation or two, when the benefits of Roman civilisation — running water, wine, the rule of law — became apparent, the locals were offered citizenship in exchange for military service, first against the tribes to the north, and then in the conquest of Egypt.
Within another generation or two the Gauls considered themselves Roman and spoke the language that would eventually become French.
That’s what would have happened here, too, except that the Romans had no interest in conquering the island they dubbed Winterland — Hibernia. Too cold, too wet, and nothing worth exploiting.
The contrast between wet and windy Tuam and dry, warm Nîmes a couple of weeks ago reminded me of the Roman soldiers on Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England writing home for woollen socks.
You cannot keep Rome out of your mind for long when visiting this lovely town, only 25 minutes by train from the regional capital, Montpellier.
It has everything you would expect from a French town of reasonable size: elegant shops, a variety of restaurants, grand civic spaces, no end of cafés outside of which to sit and watch the passing parade of elegant urbanites and sturdy rural dwellers.

Read the full feature in this week's edition of The Tuam Herald