PROVENCE, prO-vafis, a province of ancient southeastern France, bounded by Pied mont, the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Venaissin and Dauphine, and including what is now the departments of Bouches-du-RhOne, Var, Basses Alpes, and, in part, Vaucluse and Alpes Mari times. Lesser ranges of the Alps, called the Alpines and in the south the Maures, break up the country. The principal rivers are the Var, Durance and Rhone; the last river has a great marshy delta. Climate and soil vary greatly, from the damp, changeable, rather sterile and stony north to the south with its ideally mild air, its culture of bees and silkworms and its produce of olive-oil, wine, mulberries, oranges, citrons and all southern fruits. There is good sheep-grazing, but other livestock is less suc cessful. The inhabitants of the Provence pre serve to a large degree southern characteristics quite foreign to the northern Frenchmen, and keep a language and literature of their own, nearly as much alcin to the Spanish and Italian as to the French. See PROVENCAL LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
History.— There are traces in Provence, as in the polished stones found in the Grotte de la Masque and elsewhere, the tunnuli, and dol mens of Draguignan, Ponteve and la Blaque, and the lake dwellings of the mouth of the Var, of a civilization as early as the middle of the Stone Age. The Iberians held sway here until the 5th century B.C., when they were finally displaced by the Ligures. Greek and Phcem cian colonies, notably Massilia, the modern Marseilles (q.v.), had been founded here at least as early as this. The Greek city of Mar seilles by its repeated appeals to Rome for help against the Ligures, first in 155 Lc., ef fected the introduction of Roman influence, and in 124 B.C. Marcus Fulvius, pro-consul, and Gaius Sextius Calvinus, consul, destroyed the capital of the Saluvii and founded (123 ac.) on its site the city of Aquae Sextia (modern Aix-en-Provence). Victories over other tribes iu the next few years gave all the country be tween the Cevennes and the Alps to Rome. A Roman province, Provincia Romans, or Gallia Transalpina (or Narbonensis, from its capital Narbo, modern Narbonne), arose, was threat ened 15 years later by the invasion of the Cirn 1)6 and Teutones, and was racked by the civil war between Czsar and Pompey, in which Mas silia (Marseilles) siding with the Senate was captured and crushed by Casar in 49 ac. The amphitheatre of Frejus, the theatres of Arles, Frejus and Orange, the triumphal arches of Orange, Cavaillon, and Carpentras, the temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne, and the splendid Roman roads through southern France, are remains of the glory of Provence in the first four Christian centuries, when Arles was a great commercial centre and one of the resi dential cities of Constantine and when Autun and Marseilles were great university towns, Marseilles being the seat of a Greek college and a medical school.
The Visigoths entered Provence in the be ginning of the 5th century and about 470 Eurich captured Arles and made it his capital. The
Ostrogoths hekl Provence from 510 to 536, re ceiving it as the price of their assistance against the Franks, but losing it after a quarter of a century to the growing Frankish Empire. In the 8th century Charles Martel rescued it from the Saracens. In the 9th century Provence was twice a kingdom (see BURGUNDY), and from 934 to 1113 was ruled by the counts of Arles (or of Provence), descendants of Boson whose male line failing in 1113 the country went as a result of the marriage of Provencal heiresses to Berengar of Barcelona. His claim was con tested by the Count of Toulouse, who in 1125 by treaty secured Valence, Die, Orange and Venaissin; what had been retained by Berengar went to Aragon in 1162, the Count of Barce lona having come to that crown in 1137. In Venaissin; what had been retained by Berengar IV, the last of the male line, married Charles of Anjou and Provence was a possession of the house of Anjou (qv.) until 1481, when it was willed to Louis XI of France and lost its separate significance politically, though it was not united with France until 1487 under Charles VIII.
Bibliography.— A chard, C. F., 'Description Historique et Geographique de la Provence' (Aix 1787) ; Arnaud, E., 'Histoire des Pro testants en Provence' (2 vols„ Paris 1884); Arve, S. d', de I'Histoire de Provence' (Paris 1902) ; Babeau, A., 'Le Marechal de Villars, Gouverneur de Provence' (Paris 1892); Beauvais, G., 'Provence' (Paris 1914) ; Caird, M., 'Romantic Cities of Provence' (London 1906) ; Camau, E.. 'La Provence a travers les sleeks' (Paris 1907) ; id., 'Les Invasions barbares en Provence> (Paris 1909) ; id., L'In vasion des Francs en Provence' (Paris 1910); id., 'Premiers ravages des Sarrasins en Provence> (Paris 1911) ; id., 'Nouveaux rav ages des Sarrasins en Provence' (Paris 1912); Castanier, P., 'Histoire de la Provence dans l'Antiquite) (2 parts, Paris 1893-96) ; Forrest, A. S., 'Tour Through Old Provence' (New York 1911) ; Guizot, F. P. G., 'The History of France' (translated by R. Black, 8 vols., Lon don 1869-78) ; licadlam, C., 'Provence and Languedoc' (London 191?) ; Isnard, M. Z., 'Etat Documentaire et Feodal de la Haute Provence' (Digne 1913) ; Lavisse, E., ed., 'Flistoire de France' (18 vols., Paris 1900-11); Lentheric, C., 'La Grece et L'Orient en Provence' (Paris 1877); Macdonald, J. R. M.. 'A History of France' (3 vols.. New York 1915) ; Macgibbon, D., 'Architecture of Provence' (Edinburgh 1888); Oddo, H., 'La Provence: Usages, coutumes, idiomes' (Paris 1902) ; Senes, C., 'Provencaux, Historiens, Philosophes, Artistes, Soldats et Marins' (Toulon 1902) ; Staley, E., 'King Rene d'Anjou and his Seven Queens> (London 1912) ; Tar dieu, G., 'Les Alpes de Provence' (Paris 1912); Thompson, J. W., 'The Wars of Re ligion in France, 1559-76> (Chicago 1909); Viguier, J., 'Les debuts de la Revolution en Provence' (Paris 1894); id., 'La Convocation des Etats Generaux en Provence' (Marseilles 1896).