Gallo-Roman remains of ancient Bavacum, once the capital for the Nervii tribe in Bavay, France
Gallo-Roman remains of ancient Bavacum, once the capital for the Nervii tribe in Bavay, France. Local legends point to the city of Bavay's founding by a cousin of Priam fleeing the destruction of Troy in the 12th century BCE. But archaeologists have been unable to find remains dating that far into antiquity. However, the site served as a capital of the Nervii tribe, connecting their city to the capital cities of neighbouring Amiens via Arras, Tongeren, Cassel, Trier in the east and Reims in the south, until their defeat by Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars. The location then became known as Bavacum (or Bagacum) when it was designated a Roman civitas as the result of a reorganization by Augustus between 16 and 13 BCE. The town became an important commercial junction of seven roads on the trade routes between Germania and the naval port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. During the Claudian period through the dynasty of the Flavians, a forum, thermal baths fed by an aqueduct bringing water...