Corinthian porch
The front columns.
Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Krzysztof Golik — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ericsfr — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Krzysztof Golik — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0
The Maison Carrée, the «square house», is a Roman temple in the centre of Nîmes, in the Gard department of southern France, about 400 m in a straight line from the town centre and 38 km south-west of Avignon. It is one of the best-preserved Roman temples anywhere in the former Roman Empire. Around 4 to 7 AD it was dedicated to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, the grandsons and adopted heirs of the emperor Augustus. The bronze letters of the dedication were lost in the Middle Ages, and in 1758 a local scholar, Jean-François Séguier, worked out the text from the holes they had left in the stone. The temple stands on a podium 2.85 m high and measures about 26 m by 13.5 m, with a deep porch of Corinthian columns at the front and half-columns along the sides. It once dominated the forum of Roman Nîmes and still faces an open square, with the glass and steel Carré d'Art building across from it. The temple inspired buildings far away, among them the Madeleine church in Paris and the Virginia State Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023, and inside visitors can usually watch a short film about the city's Roman past.
The front columns.
Temple in the city centre.
Roman Nîmes.
Place de la Maison Carrée, Nîmes, Gard, France
About 30 minutes to an hour.
The Arènes de Nîmes, the Roman arena.
