Listed 13 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ARAGON Area SPAIN" .
ZARAGOZA (Town) ZARAGOZA
Caesaraugusta (Kaisaraugousta, Strab. iii. pp. 151, 161, 162 ; Mela,
ii. 6; Plin. iii. 3. s. 4; Itin. Ant.), or Caesarea Augusta (Kaisareia Augousta,
Ptol. ii. 6. § 63; Auson. Epist. xxiv. 84; Inscr. ap. Golz. Thesaur. p. 238: coins
generally have C. A., Caes. Augusta, or Caesar. Augusta, whence it may perhaps
be inferred that the common shorter form has arisen from running together the
two parts of the last-mentioned abbreviation: now Zaragoza, merely a corruption
of the ancient name; in English works often Saragossa), one of the chief inland
cities of Hispania Tarraconensis, stood on the right bank of the river Iberus
(Ebro), in the country of the Edetani (Plin., Ptol.), on the borders of Celtiberia
(Strab.). Its original name was Salduba which was changed in honour of Augustus,
who colonized it after the Cantabrian War, B.C. 25. (Plin. l. c. Isid. Orig. xv.
1). It was a colonia immunis, and the seat of a conventus juridicus, including
152 communities (populos clii., Plin.) It was the centre of nearly all the great
roads leading to the Pyrenees and all parts of Spain. (Itin. Ant. pp. 392, 433,
438, 439, 443, 444, 446, 448, 451, 452). Its coins, which are more numerous than
those of almost any other Spanish city, range from Augustus to Caligula. (Florez,
Esp. S. vol. iv. p. 254; Med. de Esp. vol. i. p. 186, vol. ii. p. 636, vol. iii.
p. 18; Eckhel, vol. i. pp. 36-39 ; Sestini, Med. Isp. p. 114 ; Rasche, s. v.).
There are no ruins of the ancient city, its materials having been entirely used
up by the Moors and Spaniards. (Ford, Handbook of Spain, p. 580.)
The first Christian poet, Aurelius Prudentius, is said to have been
born at Caesaraugusta (A.D. 348); but some assign the honour to Calagurnis (Calahorra).
The place is one of Ptolemy's points of recorded astronomical observations, having
15 1/12) hours in its longest day, and being distant 3 1115 hours W. of Alexandria
(Ptol. viii. 4. § 5)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
AZAILA (Town) ZARAGOZA
Azaila ("Beligio") Teruel, Spain.
Hispano-Roman town, possibly Beligio, 12 km W of Escatron. A fortified oppidum
on the Cabezo de Alcala which covered the slopes of the hill and the surrounding
plain as far as the river Aguas. Nothing is known of its history, but there were
at least three towns: the first, founded in the Iron Age (ca. 500 B.C.), occupied
by the Iberians from the middle of the 5th c. B.C., and destroyed by Cato between
197 and 195 B.C.; the second, reconstructed in the Iberian fashion on the ruins
of the first, ca. 195 B.C., and destroyed in the Sertorian wars between 81 and
72 B.C.; a large amount of material from the second town was used during the Roman
period for the construction of a third town. After the battle of Ilerda, 49 B.C.,
it was not rebuilt.
The ruins are well preserved. Excavation has uncovered a complex defensive
system including a ditch and drawbridge, and walls of small rubble which follow
the contour of the hill. They apparently date from the Republican period, and
are arranged in terraces with communicating stairways. Two streets climb directly
to the acropolis and a third serves as a ring road. The decumanus runs N-S, divides
into two in the last third of its course, and has short cardines, one of which
ends in a watch tower; all the streets were paved with large irregular stones
and had sidewalks, reflecting advanced city planning. The approach to the acropolis
was protected by two towers. Except for a few houses (one with grindstones) and
the guard house, the N part is occupied by a large house or palace. In the center
of the oppidum there is a small temple in antis and another of the native type
near a deep and well-built cistern. In the first temple was found a group of bronze
statues; two of them, from before 49 B.C., were once thought to be Augustus and
Livia but almost certainly represent the ranking Roman of the district and his
wife. The remains of a horse, fragments of a bed, and some ladles were also found
here, also a little bull from the native temple.
The pottery includes painted Iberian ware, Campanian, and common ware
(wheel-turned jars and amphorae), but no terra sigillata. None of the 802 coins
studied are later than 45 B.C. Unlike that of the Bronze Age tumulus, the site
of the Ibero-Roman cemetery is unknown.
Finds are in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid and the
Zaragoza Museum.
A. Beltran, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
BILBILIS (Ancient city) ZARAGOZA
Bilbilis (Calatayud) Zaragoza, Spain.
Iberian settlement and Roman municipium in the Conventus Caesaraugustanus Tarraconensis,
at the junction of the Jalon and Jiloca rivers and SW of the town of Zaragoza
on the road to Madrid. Traces of it are visible on the hill above Bambola, 6 km
from the present town of Calatayud. Excavations have yielded remains perhaps of
a theater, of a temple, and of hydraulic construction. The town climbed a hillside
and was of long but irregular outline. Paintings and other objects are in the
local museum.
Bilbilis was the scene of the struggle between Sertorius and Metellus.
The town issued native coinage and, from the time of Augustus, Imperial bronze
coinage. It was famous for the temper of its weapons, as well as for being the
place where Martial was born and died. Ausonius (Ep. 29.57), in the 4th c., includes
it among the abandoned and desolate Spanish towns.
J. Arce, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
FABARA (Town) ARAGON
Fabara Zaragoza, Spain.
About 13 km E of Caspe. Not mentioned in ancient sources. A large tomb in the
shape of a rectangular temple has survived, prostyle tetrastyle, with shallow
pronaos and naos. The four columns of the facade are of the Tuscan order, with
smooth shafts carrying an Ionic entablature with frieze decorated with garlands.
The lateral walls have attached pilasters. Only a portion of the pediment is preserved,
bearing an inscription stating that the monument is dedicated to the shades of
Lucius Aemilius Lupus (CIL II Supp., 5851). Construction is in large stone blocks
bound by iron clamps. In the interior at the left of the naos a stairway descends
to a vaulted sepulchral crypt. The date of the monument is uncertain.
J. Arce, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
HUESCA (Town) ARAGON
Osca (Huesca) Huesca, Spain.
Oppidum Urbs Victrix Osca, an Iberian oppidum first named Bolscan and then Olscan,
on a hill with fortifications 3 m thick to halfway up the slope. At the intersection
of the Roman roads from Asturica Augusta to Tarraco and Caesaraugusta to Benearum,
it belonged to the Conventus Iuridicus Caesaraugustanus and was inhabited by Roman
citizens, in Vescitania (Pliny), in the territory of the Ilergetes (Ptolemy),
or of the Iacetani (Strabo). In 208 B.C. it was the limit of the Roman power and
was mentioned in the account of the struggles against the native tribes of the
N, 206-97 B.C. It fell into the hands of Sertorius in 62. He made it his capital
as the natural center of his territory, and between 80 and 72 (certainly before
the battle of Lauro), he founded an academy where the sons of Iberian chieftains
were given a Graeco-Roman education, including grammar and rhetoric. Sertorius
also introduced the use of the toga praetexta and the gilded bulla. In 72 he was
murdered in Osca by Perperna. The city had a strong Christian community from the
middle of the 3d c. A.D. on, outstanding members of which were St. Lorenzo and
St. Vicente.
No monuments remain but much Roman material has been found: the sarcophagus
decorated with a clipius which today contains the body of Ramiro II (San Pedro
el Viejo cloister); remains of a colossal bronze statue of the Imperial age in
the Church of San Salvador; a statuette of Pan; a mosaic or tessellatum in the
Ayuntamiento; lamps, cinerary urns, terra sigillata, inscriptions, and many coins.
Livy spoke of the enormous amount of Oscan silver that was sent to Rome, at least
in 195 and 179, not Iberian silver coins bearing the native names of the town
and the horseman with a lance, but Iberian drachmae copied from those of Emporion.
Oscan denarii and bronze coins, inscribed first in Iberian and then in Latin,
included many plated pieces and were minted by Sertorius in great quantities.
Latin issues began around 38, continuing the Iberian series and beginning with
the denarius of Cn. Dimitius Calvinus, second consul in 40, the conqueror of the
Cerretani in 39 and certainly the legate in the constitutio of the municipium;
the coin bears the name Osca, the Iberian head, and the priestly signs. Latin
bronze coins were minted from the time of Augustus to that of Caius Caesar and
bear their heads, the horseman, and the lengend V.V.Osca.
The finds are almost all in the Huesca Provincial Museum.
A. Beltran, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
JACA (Town) ARAGON
Iacca (Jaca) Huesca, Spain.
Town of the Vascones in Hispania Tarraconensis, ca. 70 km N of Huesca on the main
road to France. Livy (21.23) mentions the inhabitants, the Iacetani, in connection
with Hannibal's march through the Pyrenees on his advance against Rome. Menioned
also by Sallust (2.5) and Plutarch (Sert. 4). We know that it minted coinage and
that it was a station on the highroad to Caesaraugusta (Rav. 309.7). Remains of
walls and buildings were visible as late as the 19th c.
J. Arce, ed.
LA ALMUNIA DE DONA CODINA (Town) ZARAGOZA
Nertobriga (La Almunia de Dona Godina) Zaragoza, Spain.
The present town 50 km SW of Zaragoza, NE of Calatayud, was constructed
on the ruins of a Roman villa excavated a few years ago which, from its mosaics,
can be dated to the 3d c. A.D.
The exact location of the Celtiberian city and the mansio on the Roman
road is uncertain, in spite of an attempt to identify it with Roman ruins, probably
villas, near Calatorae. Recent excavations in Cabezo Chinchon, between Calatorae
and Almunia, have unearthed a prehistoric settlement of the 6th and 5th c. B.C.,
but no Celtiberian establishment. The indigenous city, often referred to in military
events of the 2d c. B.C., which minted coins bearing the inscription NERTOBIS
in the Iberian alphabet, must lie in the Ricla-Calatora-La Almunia triangle.
A. Balil, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
VELILLA DE EBRO (Village) ZARAGOZA
Celsa (Velilla de Ebro) Zaragoza, Spain.
Town in Tarraconensis, near the Ebro, and E of Quinto, key to the romanization
of the valley before the foundation of Caesaraugusta. Its history is based on
the many bronze coins minted in the 2d and 1st c. B.C.: first Iberian, bearing
the name Celsa, and then Latin. The city was founded by Lepidus in 42 B.C. and
named Colonia Victrix Iulia Lepida. After the fall of the triumvirate, its name
was changed to Iulia Celsa. Its decline began after the founding of Caesaraugusta
in 24 B.C. It had the only stone bridge over the Ebro in the upper third of its
course up to Dertosa (Strabo: Ad Hiberum amnem est Celsa oppidum, ubi ponte lapideo
Amnis iungitur); Pliny located it in the jurisdiction of the Conventus luridicus
Caesaraugustanus and Ptolemy attributed it to the Ilergetes. Its location is certainly
in the Velilla de Ebro, where there are the remains of a bridge reported in the
19th c., and ruins between the sanctuaries of San Nicolas and San Jose, which
include a wall of opus reticulatum.
Pottery, carnelians, coins, and bronze letters of various weights
have been found, and excavations have uncovered mosaics in threshing floors, terra
sigillata, and painted stuccos with figurative themes. Below the San Jose sanctuary
stand the ruins of the Roman theater with traces of the walls of the stage and
of the tiers of seats of the cavea. Among finds made at an earlier period Martin
Carrillo (1435) speaks of a statue, later destroyed, of a certain T. Sempronius
with a scroll and staff. The name of the ancient town has been preserved in Gelsa,
4 km NW, where finds have also been made. A Roman road that crossed the Monegros
from Bujaraloz ran as far as the Val de Velilla, and stones with inscriptions
have been found nearby. An area between Velilla and Gelsa is still called Puencaido,
which may refer to the stone bridge mentioned by Strabo.
Celsa minted coins bearing the abbreviated names of the town or its
initials. Lepida first used the head of Victory and the yoke of oxen led by a
priest, the foundation type, and later the heads of Peace and of Pallas and a
bull, copied from Republican prototypes. After 36 B.C. come the duoviri themselves,
with the bust of Augustus and a bull, and coins continued to be minted until the
time of Tiberius. Finds are in the Zaragoza museum.
A. Beltran, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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