Cities of the Classical World by Colin McEvedy

Author:Colin McEvedy [McEvedy, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141967639
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Mérida

Badajoz province, Spain

Classical Emerita Augusta; capital of the province of Lusitania, and later the seat of both the count and the vicar of the Spains

Mérida, on the right bank of the Guadiana, was founded by Augustus, supposedly in 25 BC although the archaeologists say that serious work on the town only began some ten years later. It had two functions, the first of which was to provide a home for discharged legionaries, the second to act as the administrative centre for the newly created province of Lusitania. Money flowed freely to make the city worthy of its purposes. It was given two forums, one to serve the townsfolk, another to provide a venue for the delegation that the Lusitanian peoples were obliged to dispatch from time to time to demonstrate their loyalty to the Roman state. There was also a theatre and, somewhat later, probably in the Flavian period (AD 69-96), an amphitheatre and a circus. Just outside the town are another two constructions of early imperial date: a bridge across the Guadiana (with fifty-seven of its original sixty-four arches still standing), and the terminal section of an aqueduct now known as Los Milagros, ‘The Marvels’ (of which thirty-seven piers and ten three-tiered arches survive).

Mérida seems to have weathered the transition to late antiquity better than the great majority of Roman towns. An element in this better-than-average performance was certainly the provincial reorganization carried out under Diocletian in the last years of the third century AD. In the course of this, most provinces were halved in size; however, Lusitania not only retained all its territory, but its administrative centre, Mérida, had its area of responsibility widened to include all Spain and part of Morocco. The creation of this ‘Diocese of the Spains’ will have brought a new flow of funds to Mérida, and that this was actually the case is proved by the restoration work carried out in the 330s on the theatre, amphitheatre and circus. These structures make one wonder if there may be a palace to be discovered in this suburban sector comparable to the one recently excavated outside CORDOBA. Something of the sort could be expected to have been provided for such a high-ranking official as the civil vicar of the Spanish diocese, and for his military opposite number, the count of the Spains, who contributed to the restoration of the circus, along with the governor of Lusitania, in 337–40.

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