Tour Magne, Nimes · Wikimedia Commons

Tour Magne

Turris Magna (conventional)

MonumentGallia Narbonensis · Nimes, FranceBuilt 15 BCE

About

Standing on the highest point in Nimes, this tower was raised around 15 BCE as the tallest of fourteen towers ringing Augustus's new seven-kilometer city wall, built directly over an older Gallic tower whose height it roughly doubled. It still rises 32 meters today despite losing its upper third to centuries of stone-robbing. In 117 CE it dominated the skyline over the plain toward the Mediterranean, already well over a century old.

What happened here

It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.