Aix en Provence

Aix-en-Provence is a city-cooperative in the south of France, around 30 km north of Marseille. A previous capital of Provence, it is in the locale of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, in the division of Bouches-du-Rhone, of which it is a subprefecture. The number of inhabitants in Aix numbers around 143,000. Its occupants are called Aixois or, less generally, Aquisextains. Aix was established in 123 BC by the Roman emissary Sextius Calvinus, who gave his name to its springs, following the obliteration of the adjacent Gallic oppidum at Entremont.

In 102 BC its region was the scene of the Battle of Aquae Sextiae, where the Romans under Gaius Marius crushed the Cimbri and Teutones, with mass suicides among the caught ladies, which go into Roman legends of Germanic chivalry. In the fourth century AD it turned into the city of Narbonensis Secunda. It was involved by the Visigoths in 477. In the succeeding century, the town was over and again ravaged by the Franks and Lombards, and was involved by the Saracens in 731 and by Charles Martel in 737.

Aix, which amid the Middle Ages was the capital of Provence, did not achieve its peak until after the twelfth century, when, under the places of Barcelona/Aragon and Anjou, it turned into a masterful focus and seat of learning. Aix go to the crown of France with the remainder of Provence in 1487, and in 1501 Louis XII set up there the parliament of Provence, which existed until 1789. In the seventeenth and 18th centuries, the town was the seat of the Intendance of Provence.