Massalia

About

Massalia () is a Greek colony founded by Phocaeans around 600 BC, now known as Marseilles. As early as the fifth century BC, it became, with the Phoenician colony of Carthage, one of the main seaports of the Western Mediterranean Sea. Throughout Hellenistic times, she was a faithful ally of the Romans.

It became a Roman city at the beginning of the 1st century AD, it took the name of Massilia and retained its role as a cultural crucible and commercial port on the shores of the south of Gaul, although, having preferred Pompey to Julius Caesar, it lost its independence and market supremacy, notably to the benefit of Arelate (Arles). The Romans left the city with its Greek culture. They prefer to discover this culture and learn the Greek language in Massalia, closer to their land, rather than embarking on a long and expensive journey towards the eastern Mediterranean.

Romanized during the late antiquity, Christianized in the fifth century, diminished as a result of the Gothic invasions, it regains relative prosperity in the seventh century and gives rise to a Christian foundation, the Saint-Victor Abbey of...