[5] The town had a strong Celtic identity, shown by the names of the residents (Vrittakos, Eporix, Litumaros); by the names of the local gods (Glanis and his companions, the Glanicae, (similar to the Roman Matres); and the goddesses Rosmerta and Epona); by the statues and pottery; by the customs, such as displaying the severed heads of enemies at the city gate; and by the cooking utensils found in the ruins, which showed that the people of Glanis boiled their food in pots, rather than frying it in pans like other Mediterranean tribes.

[6] The people of Glanum were in early contact with the Greek colony of Massalia, present day Marseille, which had been founded in about 600 BC.

But by the 2nd century BC conflicts and wars arose between the Salyens and the Greeks of Marseille, who not having a powerful army, called upon the assistance of their Roman allies.

The rebellion was crushed this time by the Consul Caecilius, and the remains of the main buildings demolished and replaced by more modest structures.

[7] In 49 BC, Julius Caesar captured Marseille and, after a period of destructive civil wars, the romanisation of Provence and Glanum began.

The town was overrun and destroyed by the Alamanni in 260 AD and subsequently abandoned, its inhabitants moving a short distance north into the plain to found a city that eventually became modern day Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

The mausoleum and triumphal arch, together known as "Les Antiques", were famous and were visited by King Charles IX, who had the surroundings cleaned up and maintained.

From 1921 until 1941, the archaeologist Pierre de Brun worked on the site, discovering the baths, the basilica, and the residences of the northern part of the town.

The frieze beneath the conical roof is decorated with a rinceau featuring carvings of acanthus leaves, used in Roman mortuary architecture to represent eternal rebirth.

The lowest part of the mausoleum is decorated with carved garlands of vegetation, theater masks and cupids or putti, and with mythical or legendary scenes.

The earliest monuments discovered in Glanum were built by the Salyens in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries BC and were strongly influenced by the Hellenic style of the nearby Greek colony of Marseille.

They included a large building around a trapezoidal peristyle, or courtyard surrounded by columns; and a sacred well, or dromos, next to a small temple in the Tuscan style.

On the southern side was a semi-circular excedre, while on the north was the basilica, the large hall that was the palace of justice and seat of government.

To the left and right of the gate are vestiges of the older walls, dating from between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC, making a rampart 16 meters high.

In Robert Holdstock's fantasy novel Ancient Echoes, Glanum is a sentient, living, moving city which eventually settles at its present site in Provence.