The city of Nîmes was created more than 2,000 years ago around a deified spring located in the current gardens of the fountain and which has since been called Nemausus. The current city was originally one of the most important colonies of the Roman world, crossed by the Via Domitia, the road that linked Rome to Spain. The heyday of Nîmes was under the reign of Emperor Augustus, whose time saw the construction of the famous Roman monuments that still dot Nîmes' landscape. Like the Roman amphitheater, they are among the best-preserved of the ancient empire.