Page 3 of 4
Page 1: The Greek City
Page 2: The Greek City (continued)
Page 3: The Roman City
Page 4: The Roman City (continued)
Right after Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees, the Romans arrived at Emporion by ship and set up a camp on the hill above the Greek city. That camp quickly became its own, permanent, city. The Romans didn't come just to rescue the Greeks from becoming Carthaginian property, they came to dominate the peninsula and everyone in it.
So the first arrival of Romans at Emporion was in 218 BC, with Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio as the military comander, and he established a large camp. His job was to cut off the supply line feeding Hannibal on his expedition to Italy and begin to make Iberia a Roman province by first kicking out the Carthaginians and next pacifying the natives. City building began at this time.
The next arrival was Cato, 23 years later in 195 BC, and he had construction begun at Emporion to build a city in the finest Roman tradition to protect the all-important harbor where his war-supplies would be arriving continually. Building supplies and builders also came by ship, of course. But Cato's primary job was to pacify the natives.
The Roman city at Emporion stayed important as a military and trading center, but as Roman headquartes it was soon replaced with new headquarter cities built in Gerona and near Barcelona and other places moving south along the coast to allow supply ships to come close as possible to the ever moving war front. As the Romans finally captured New Carthage, this southward city-building was replaced with interior city building, with a major city built in the geographical center of the country where Toledo now sits. The Romans were very serious about making this place a Roman province.
Later, in the first few centuries AD, the Roman city at Emporias grew and became a sought-after home for retiring Roman military officers. (Ceasar wanted them out of the reach of the Roman military, he didn't want lingering loyalties to old commanders to get in the way of his military ambitions so funded this retirement community well).
So, let's get to the city, much of which is an active archeological dig site as indicated by this sign over the public baths area:
Not far from the sign, the archaeologists were activiely digging.
I asked one of the diggers where the famous house-floor-mosiacs were that were featured in the guidebooks. She pointed them out to me and added that just this week they had covered them with sand (see next photo) to preserve them against winter freeze-thaw destruction. Just like the floor mosaic in the Greek town, and just my luck!
The people in the background of the above photo were visiting the Forum area with its temple remains (and two partially reconstructed temples):
But most of the temples surrounding the Forum were mere foundation outlines in stone:
The archeaologists have their work cut out for them. Like its Greek counterpart, this is a big site.
The setting of this city will be the topic of the next page.
Go to the second page on the Roman town at Empuries.
Go back to the first page on the Greek town at Empuries.
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