Did the Romans take the waters at Ax? Two coins, one doubt

This table is easy to read: between the Roman coins and the medieval basin, eight to ten centuries of silence. That’s the gap that tourist-brochure phrasing fills, without evidence.

On one site devoted to Ax’s baths, we read that Ax has been a spa town since Roman times, and that many of its springs have been used since Roman antiquity. An English-language travel guide writes that the springs have probably been used since the Romans. A 2024 local radio article mentions water recorded at the site for 8,000 years. As for the Bains du Couloubret, they happily present themselves on the model of Roman baths, with a frigidarium, a caldarium and a vaporarium, and a central hall whose colonnades and alcoves recall the layout of ancient baths.

These sentences have one thing in common: none of them cites an excavation, an inscription or an object. They belong to a touristic atmosphere that thermal-spa marketing is quite happy to cultivate. They prove nothing, but they raise a good question.

The town of Ax is more cautious. In its history of the town, it writes that antiquity left few real traces, apart from two Roman coins from the 3rd and 4th centuries, found in the 19th century by "abbé Garrigou." That is all that is publicly known about these coins, and it isn’t much.

Who was this Garrigou? The town hall speaks of an abbot, but two Garrigous from Tarascon-sur-Ariège have their names tied to Ax. Félix Garrigou (1835–1920), a physician, prehistorian and hydrologist, was a consulting physician at Ax from 1860 and published a chemical and medical study of Ax’s sulphurous waters in 1862. His father, Adolphe Garrigou (1802–1893), a historian, is known for his archaeological work. As far as we can tell, neither was an abbot.

Many questions remain unanswered. Which emperors are depicted on the coins? Where exactly were they found — in the soil, near a spring, in the water of a basin? Where are they today?

Even if identified, two coins from the 3rd and 4th centuries would not prove the existence of baths. These late bronzes are among the most common finds on sites from late antiquity, and they could have been lost by a traveller, a merchant or a resident. At best they prove that people moved through Ax under the late Empire. For them to suggest offerings, they would need to have been found in the water of a spring, and nothing indicates that this is the case.

In 2006, before the restoration of the Bassin des Ladres, the HADES survey firm carried out four archaeological soundings within its footprint [link to our article on the Bassin des Ladres, forthcoming]. Its summary offers two useful elements for our question.

The first is an absence. The basin is a medieval structure, uniform in construction, built at the latest in the second half of the 13th century. The summary mentions no ancient structure. The second element is a quiet presence. In the fill, archaeologists regularly find a proportion of reworked ancient material dating from the 1st century BC to the mid-1st century AD. This material attests, in their view, to occupation of the confluence at the end of the Iron Age. This range nonetheless overlaps with the beginning of the Roman period.

The town hall, for its part, cites recent archaeological research that has confirmed occupation of the site in the early Iron Age through a few pieces of pottery, as well as a Bronze Age funerary deposit. Ax was therefore inhabited well before the Romans, though whether hot water played any role there remains unknown.

One remark from the same report deserves a smile. The archaeologists had to clear the fill of "numerous coin pollutants" from the late 20th century — that is, coins thrown into the basin by visitors. The lesson is a useful one: a coin in a basin does not date the basin. Only the context in which it is found matters.

Finally, the authors note that the immediate surroundings of the site reveal rich and complex archaeological potential. In other words, the question is not closed: it awaits further excavation.

If the Romans left no visible baths, did they leave a town? The town hall puts forward a hypothesis. It is probable, it writes, that a Gallo-Roman-era settlement grew into a vicus — a small agglomeration — situated at the confluence of several regionally important routes. This vicus would correspond to the old town, on the right bank of the Lauze, where the parish church of Saint-Vincent now stands, and where a baptismal church dedicated to Saint John may originally have existed.

It adds that the hot springs appear to have been the object of cults. The chapel of Saint-Jean d’Auze, today the Couloubret café, and the church of Saint-Vincent would, in its view, be the last witnesses of this transitional period between antiquity and the Middle Ages.

This reasoning is plausible, but it rests on probabilities, not objects. It infers a cult of the waters from the dedication of Christian buildings, and a Roman settlement from Ax’s position on trade routes. One thinks of the Saint-Jean festival, when residents bathe in the Bassin des Ladres after covering themselves in ash. Should we see in this an echo of a very ancient cult of the waters? No source says so, and we have found nothing to support the claim. It’s a line of inquiry to explore, not a conclusion.

To gauge this silence, it helps to look at Ax’s neighbours. At Bagnères-de-Luchon, the Onesian baths are mentioned by Strabo around 19 BC. Various remains have been uncovered there — votive altars, basins, channels, reservoirs and cosmetic items — during redevelopments of the site in the 18th and 19th centuries. At Bagnères-de-Bigorre, the construction of the Grands Thermes in the 19th century revealed columns from ancient baths and the ruins of pools. At Amélie-les-Bains, monks founded a church in 778 amid the ruins of ancient baths.

A local site, citing a 1926 work, reports that the 1824 discoveries at Bagnères-de-Bigorre included marble pools resting on a paved floor and, among the rubble, medallions bearing the likenesses of Augustus, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. At Bourbonne-les-Bains, the very name of the resort recalls Borvo, the Gaulish deity of hot springs. In these resorts, antiquity left architecture, inscribed stones, objects. At Ax, it left two coins. Several explanations are possible. The Romans may simply not have developed Ax’s springs, even though they did so elsewhere. Or the traces may have disappeared: the Inventaire du patrimoine notes that, from the mid-18th century, the resort saw the rediscovery of the medicinal properties of its waters, followed by two centuries of construction and reconstruction, much of it at a time when excavation was not carried out as it is today. Or the traces may still lie buried beneath the town, as suggested by the potential flagged by the 2006 soundings.

What would evidence look like? Archaeologists look for structures. At Aix-les-Bains, it was the discovery of opus signinum, a waterproof coating made of crushed brick, that launched excavations revealing a Roman thermal complex: two indoor pools and a circular outdoor pool ten metres in diameter, heated by thermal water, with abundant calcareous deposits. At Sceaux-sur-Huisne, in the Sarthe, a bath complex with a basin, pools and heated rooms was excavated, and the discovery of coins of Vespasian and Domitian suggests these baths were operating in the 1st century.

The difference is essential. There, the coins are found inside a bath building, and it is that context which gives them meaning. At Ax, the two coins stand alone. To move forward, then, one would need crushed brick, channels, heated floors, altars dedicated to the Nymphs, or inscriptions — none of which any source we consulted reports at Ax.

Let’s sum up in three levels of certainty.

The Inventaire du patrimoine, for its part, settles on a cautious date: the use of the thermal waters for domestic or therapeutic purposes is attested at Ax from the 13th century. Before that, one must be content with hypotheses. Phrases like "a spa town since Roman times" are, to date, more a wish than a fact.

Several avenues are within reach. Identify the two coins, find out where they are held, and determine precisely where they were found. Read Félix Garrigou’s 1862 study of Ax’s waters, as well as Adolphe Garrigou’s writings, to see whether they mention these coins. Consult the HADES excavation report, filed with the regional archaeology service in Toulouse, and the archaeological map of the commune. Read Hélène Teisseire’s book on Ax-les-Thermes and its surroundings. Finally, follow future work in the baths district: every trench is a chance to find what the ground has kept.

What remains uncertain. The identity of whoever found the coins, their type and their find-spot. The existence of a Gallo-Roman vicus. Any Roman use of the waters.

Sources consulted