Aix

Aix, a French town, formerly the capital of Provence, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, 20 miles N. of Marseilles. It is believed to have been founded by the Roman consul, C. Sextius (120 B.C.), on account of the mineral springs in the neighbourhood, and thence to have got the name Aque Sextiae. Aix is the seat of an archbishop; and possesses a college with three faculties, and a public library with 150,000 volumes and 1100 MSS. The baptistery of the cathedral is believed to have been originally a temple of Apollo. There is also an old clock-tower with a quaint mechanical clock. The industry of this again flourishing town consists chiefly in the cultivation of the olive, in cotton-spinning, leather-dressing, and trade in oil, wine, almonds, &c. The warm springs are slightly sulphurous, with a temperature from 90° to 100° F., clear and transparent as the purest well-water, almost free from smell, yet with a slightly bitter taste. The field on which Marius defeated the Teutones lies in the plain between Aix and Arles. In the middle ages, under the Comts of Provence (q. v.), Aix was long the literary capital of southern Europe. Pop. (1881) 23,887; (1891) 22,924.