Roman Period
The Nervian civitas was at Bagacum. The city was founded probably outside the traditional Nervian territory and is now known as Bavay. The forum has been excavated. The town was founded in c.30 BC and rapidly became a center of Roman civilization. Towns belonging to the Nervian territory were Fanum Martis (Famars), Geminiacum (Liberchies), Turnacum (Tournai), and Cortoriacum (Kortrijk), where the splendid statuette of the Venus of Courtrai (Kortrijk) was discovered.
The Nervians were well known for the export of grain; an interesting tombstone of a frumentarius was excavated as far away as Nijmegen. They also produced ceramics (terra nigra).
Inscriptions found on artifacts recovered at Rough Castle Fort along the Antonine Wall across the Central Belt of Scotland indicate that in the 2nd century the fort was the base for 500 men of the Sixth Cohort of Nervii, an infantry unit. According to Tacitus, the Nervians also served in cohorts based along the Rhine border.
After the disastrous attacks by the Franks in 275, a new civitas was built at Camaracum (Cambrai). In 432 the country of the Nervians was officially taken over by the Franks. Their king Childeric I was buried in Tournai.
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