Antipolis

ANTI´POLIS(Ἀντίπολις: Eth. Antipolitanus: Antibes), a town in Gallia Narbonensis. D'Anville ( Notice, &c.) observes that he believes that this town has preserved the name of Antiboulin the Provençal idiom. It was founded by the Greeks of Massalia ( Marseille) in the country of the Deciates; and it was one of the settlements which Massalia established with a view of checking the Salyes and the Ligurians of the Alps. (Strab. p. 180.) It was on the maritime Roman road which ran along this coast. Antibes is on the sea, on the east side of a small peninsula a few miles W. of the mouth of the Varus ( Var). It contains the remains of a theatre, and of some Roman constructions.
Strabo states (p. 184), that though Antipolis was in Gallia Narbonensis, it was released from the jurisdiction of Massalia, and reckoned among the Italian towns, while Nicaea, which was east of the Var and in Italy, still remained a dependency of Massalia. Tacitus (Tac. Hist. 2.15) calls it a municipium of Narbonensis Gallia, which gives us no exact information. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 3.4) calls it oppidum Latinum,by which he means that it had the Jus Latium or Latinitas; but the passage in Strabo has no precise meaning, unless we suppose that Antipolis had the Jus Italicum. Antipolis, however, is not mentioned with the two Gallic cities, Lugdunum and Vienna (Dig. 50. tit. 15. s. 8), which were Juris Italici; and we may perhaps, though with some hesitation, take the statement of Pliny in preference to that of Strabo.
There are coins of Antipolis. It seems to have had some tunny fisheries, and to have prepared a pickle (muria) for fish. (Plin. Nat. 31.8; Martial (Mart. 13.103.)
[G.L]