But now, Aix is on no artery of communication. To reach it, one most go in a loitering and roundabout fashion by branch lines, on which run no express trains, in company with oxen in pens and trucks of coal.
Marseilles has drained away the traffic that formerly ebbed and flowed through Aix, leaving it listless and lifeless. But If we desire relics and reminiscences of the past we must not omit a visit to Aix.
Aquæ Sextiæ owes its foundation to Sextius Calvinus, in B.C. 124. The town has thrice shifted its site. The old Ligurian fortified town was on the heights of Entremont, three kilometres to the north—and traces of it remain, but what its name was we do not know. After the defeat of the Ligurians, Sextius Calvinus planted the Roman town about the hot springs; but the modern town lies to the east. After his victory over the Ambrons and Teutons Marius rested here and adorned the town with monuments, and led water to it by the aqueduct, of which fragments remain. Cæsar planted a colony here, and the place enjoyed great prosperity. It was sacked and destroyed by the Saracens in 731, and but slowly recovered from its ashes. From the thirteenth century the counts of Provence held their court at Aix, and here lived and painted and sang good King Réné, of whom more presently.
Aix first rises to notice conspicuously through the defeat of the Ambro-Teutons by Marius B.C. 102. I have described the campaign at some length in my book In Troubadour Land, as I went over the whole of the ground carefully. Here I will but sum up the story briefly.
The Cimbri from what is now Jutland, the Teutons,
