through Caesar a Latin municipal constitution on such a footing, that the "praetors" of the Volcae presided over the whole district embracing twenty-four townships,[39] until not long thereafter the old arrangement disappeared even in name, and instead of the canton of the Volcae came the Latin town of Nemausus (Nîmes). In a similar way the most considerable of all the cantons of this province, that of the Allobroges, who had possession of the country northward of the Isére and eastward of the middle Rhone, from Valence and Lyons to the mountains of Savoy and to the lake of Geneva, obtained, probably already through Caesar, a like urban organisation and Italian rights, till at length the emperor Gaius granted the Roman franchise to the town of Vienna. So in the province as a whole the larger centres were organised by Caesar, or in the first age of the empire, on the basis of Latin rights, such as Ruscino (Roussillon), Avennio (Avignon), Aquae Sextiae (Aix), Apta (Apt). Already at the close of the Augustan age the country along both banks of the lower Rhone was completely Romanised in language and manners; the cantonal constitution throughout the province was probably set aside with the exception of slight remnants. The burgesses of the communities on whom the imperial franchise was conferred, and no less the burgesses in those of Latin rights, who had acquired for themselves and for their descendants the imperial franchise by entering the imperial army or by the holding of offices in their native towns, stood in law on a footing of complete equality with the Italians, and, like them, attained to offices and honours in the imperial service. [Sidenote: Lugudunum.]