HISTORY
The city was first founded in the sixth century BC by a Celtic tribe known as the Volcae Arecomici. This pagan tribe found a spring in the city and built a shrine to the goddess of the spring. The presence of this tribe is visible in the tower built at the Tour Magne and later incorporated into the Roman Structures at he arrival of the Romans in the first century BC who took the town without resistance. The Romans began building temples and structures to support the expanding city, idealized as a stopping point on the Domitian Way from Rome to Spain and put a wall around it as protection. Continuing invasions throughout the third century finished in the succession of the Visigoths in the fifth century. These were dark times for the city which decreased in size and during the eight century the population lived in the arena to protect themselves, abandoning the outer parts of the city. At the time it housed some 2000 people. Things took a turn for the better with the new Millennium when the devastated roman walls were replaced with new ones and trade began again emphasing the area's abundance of wine and olive production. Due to the water from the spring the textile industry found life as it helped in the processes of tanning and dying cloth. The city relived a violent period during the sixteenth century during the wars of Religion as a Huguenot city. All of those excluded form public life turned to manufacturing and the textile industry expanded further with silk production and exports to Europe and the Indies. At this time a worker Turion set up the first Jacquard looms and the city began its famous shawl production. During the nineteenth century investments from the textile industry were put into the vineyards and wine growing in the area was extended helped by the arrival of the train to facilitate transport and the area around the station was developed and prospered.
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