Raphael also will be inland, and the Lion de Mer will become, like
its fellow, a Lion de Terre.
Michel de l’Hôpital, who lived in the sixteenth century, in one of his
letters wrote:—
“We arrived at Fréjus, which is nothing more now but a poor little
town. Here are grand ruins of an ancient theatre, foundered arcades,
baths, aqueduct, and scattered remains of quays and basins. The port
has disappeared under sand, and is now nothing but a field and a
beach.”
If S. Raphael be devoid of antiquities and of history, at a little
distance is Fréjus, that has both in abundance.
The ruins are many, but not beautiful; everything was built in a hurry,
and badly built. The aqueduct was no sooner completed than it gave way
and had to be patched up. The triumphal arch on the old quays is a
shabby affair. The amphitheatre is half cut out of the natural rock.
There was plenty of granite and porphyry accessible, but the builders
did not trouble themselves to obtain large and solid blocks; they built
of brick and small stones, without skill and impatiently. The work was
probably executed by corvées of labourers impressed from the country
round. There were two enormous citadels; one to the north, the other to
the south of the port. The latter, the Butte S. Antoine, was, however,
mainly a huge accumulation of store chambers, magazines for whatever
was needed for the soldiers, and attached to it was the lighthouse.
Beyond, some way on the ancient mole, is the most perfect monument of
Roman times extant in Fréjus. It goes by the name of La Lantern; but
it was not a lighthouse at all, but the lodge of a harbour-master, who
gave directions with a flag to vessels how to enter the harbour and
avoid the shoals.
The railway now runs close to it across the ancient basin, the port
made by Agrippa. To the north of this, where stands now the chapel of
S. Roch, was the Port of Cæsar. Poplars now stand where was formerly a
forest of masts.
The amphitheatre is cut through its entire length by a road. The old
wall of the town reached to it, included it, and then drew back to
where is now the railway station. The remains of the theatre are to the
north of the modern town, and those of the baths to the south-west;
they may be reached by taking a road in that direction from the Butte
S. Antoine.
Although Julius Cæsar has the credit of having made the place and
called it after his own name, it is certainly more than a guess that
there was a Græco-Phœnician settlement here before that time, occupying
the bunch of high ground rising above the marshes of the Argens.
Indeed, monuments have been found that imply as much, though later in
date than the making of the place into a naval station by Cæsar. One of
these is bi-lingual—Latin and Greek. It begins in Latin:—
“To Caius Vilius Ligur, this is dedicated by his mother Maxima.”
Then comes Greek:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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