Villefranche-sur-Mer is a small town and commune in the Alpes-Maritimes département, on the French Riviera with a population of just under 7,000. Man has settled the site of what is now Villefranche and surrounding Beaulieu-sur-Mer and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat since prehistoric times. Celto-ligurian tribes roamed the area and established farming communities on the hills surrounding. The Greeks and later the Romans used the natural harbor as a stop over en route to the Greek settlements around the Western Mediterranean. After the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, the Romans built an extension of the Via Aurelia (Aurelian Way), which passed through the settlement of Montolivo.