The Gold of Toulouse

The city of Tolosa — today’s Toulouse — was the capital of the Volcae Tectosages, a Celtic tribe. In their sacred lakes and temples lay immense treasures: gold and silver they had dedicated to the gods, or that came from old war booty. The Tectosages had, according to tradition, once shared in the plundering of Delphi in 279 BC, and part of the Apollo temple treasure was said to have reached them.

In 106 BC the Roman consul Quintus Servilius Caepio came with his legions to Tolosa, which had recently revolted against Rome. Caepio took the city and plundered its temples. Fifteen thousand talents of gold and silver were loaded on wagons and shipped to Rome — a treasure of literally immeasurable size.

But on the way to Rome a great part of the gold vanished. Wagons fell into rivers, soldiers disappeared, chests arrived empty. Some said that Caepio himself had sunk the treasure into the Garonne to keep it for himself. Others said the curse of the Tectosages had already begun — the gods of Tolosa avenged themselves.

A year later, in 105 BC, Caepio was ordered to fight the Cimbri and Teutones, who were entering Gaul from the north. At Arausio (today’s Orange) battle was joined. Caepio refused to cooperate with his colleague Cn. Mallius Maximus — out of sheer pride. The Roman army was beaten in detachments and destroyed. 80,000 Romans fell.

Caepio survived, but the Roman Senate held him responsible both for the secret disappearance of the Tolosa treasure and for the disaster at Arausio. He was removed from office, his property was confiscated, and he died in exile at Smyrna. His descendants thereafter lived under a thick fog of misfortune, illness and early death.

The saying “Habere aurum Tolosanum” — to possess the gold of Toulouse — became throughout the Roman Empire a warning. Whoever had acquired something unlawfully bore a curse with him, like Caepio with his Tolosa gold. The treasure itself was never recovered. Some say it still lies on the bed of the Garonne, or in an underground hollow beneath old Toulouse, and that the curse still works on whoever shall ever find it.