The Tour Magne — "great tower" — crowns Mount Cavalier above the Jardins de la Fontaine. Augustus's engineers built it around 15 BC, partly as the high point of the Roman city's defensive walls, partly as a visible statement of the new imperial order. Three storeys of dressed stone survive; the top has been gone for centuries.
A spiral staircase climbs to the open platform at the top. The view is the reward: the rooftops of Nîmes laid out below, the garrigue hills behind, and on clear days a glimpse of the sea. The climb up from the Jardins is steep but takes only fifteen minutes.