Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "BURGOS Province CASTILLE-LEON" .
BRIVIESCA (Town) BURGOS
Virobesca (Briviesca) Burgos, Spain.
About 40 km NE of Burgos. The most important community of the Autrigones, mentioned by Pliny (HN 3.27) and by Ptolemy (2.677.52.64). A magnificent Early Christian sarcophagus was found here, with biblical scenes on one face and the martyrdom of Santa Perpetua on the other. It dates from about the middle of the 4th c. and is now in the Burgos museum.
PENALBA DE CASTRO (Village) BURGOS
Clunia (Penalba de Castro) Burgos, Spain.
Site on the Arandilla river near Coruna del Conde, ca. 30 km N of Aranda de Duero.
Chief town of the Conventus iuridicus Cluniensis, province of Tarraconensis in
Hispania Citerior, and a Celtiberian town of the Arevaci, mentioned during the
Sertorian wars. Livy (Per. 72) says that Pompey besieged Sertorius in Clunia in
75 B.C., but according to Sallust (Hist. 2.93) Clunia hesitated between Sertorius
and Pompey. It fell into the hands of Perpenna (Exuperantius 8; Florus 2.10.9),
and is mentioned at the end of the Celtiberian wars when the Vaccaei were defeated
by Metellus who attacked Clunia. Winter imposed an armistice in 56 (Dio Cass.
39.54). Afranius, a legate of Pompey during the triumvirate, finally subdued the
Arevaci and the Vaccaei.
There is no further information about the town until the time of Galba.
It was the chief town of the Conventus Tarraconensis, established by Augustus
and Claudius in A.D. 41-54 (Plin. HN) and a large, fortified town during Galba's
revolt against Nero; Galba took refuge there after the defeat of Vindex. It was
undoubtedly in Clunia that Galba gave the standard to the new Legio VII Gemina
on 10 June 68 (Tac., Hist. 2.11.1; 3.22.4; Dio Cass. 55.24; Suet., Galba 10).
On Nero's death Galba took the title of Emperor in Clunia, as evidenced by the
inscription on the sestercius minted by him with the legend HISPANIA CLUNIA SUL(picia)
(s. Jucker) and the representation of Hispania or Clunia standing before the enthroned
monarch offering him the pallium. The town is mentioned by Pliny (HN 3 and 4)
in 77 B.C. and also in the Antonine Itinerary and by the Cosmographer of Ravenna,
but Pliny does not mention it in the list of colonies in Hispania Citerior founded
by Augustus. It bears the title of colony in an inscription (CIL II, 2780) from
the time of Adrianus, A.D. 137, in the Burgos Archaeological Museum, and in the
mention in Ptolemy. The presence of the quattuorviri and the aediles on the asses
and the semisses from its mint in the time of Tiberius indicate that it was a
municipium of free men.
The town must have been destroyed in the 3d c. during the invasions
of the Franks and the Alamanni, as evidenced by the coin hoard from House 1, with
mintings from the time of Galienus, Aurelianus, Florianus, Probus, Carus, Numerianus,
Carinus, and Magna Urbica, up to 284. But it was rebuilt in the 4th c., as evidenced
by House 1 and the forum. Nothing is known about Clunia under the Visigoths, but
it must have been occupied by the Moors on their way to Amaya (Tarif) and was
relieved and resettled by Gonzalo Fernandez in 912 (Anales Complutenses). In 920
Abderraman II found it abandoned and undefended. In the 17th c. Clunia was finally
located on the Alto de Castro, on a star-shaped meseta 1023 in above sea level,
with an area of 130 ha. The Antonine Itinerary places it on the road from Caesaraugusta
to Asturica. Nearby in Coruna del Conde are the remains of two small Roman bridges.
Excavations have been carried out in three stages. In the center of
the town is a large forum of Imperial times; it has a rectangular basilica with
two rows of columns and a small tribunal to the E perpendicular to the forum on
the N side, shops on the E side and, in the corner, the entrance into the forum
of a paved decumanus with a gateway that leads into the square. All the E side
of the forum is known, as is the SE corner with the boundary line towards the
temenos of the temple of Jupiter (not yet excavated). Near the forum on the E
is a large rectangular public building ending in an exedra, with an aisle covered
by a barrel vault and two triangular end rooms towards the N. The building is
constructed over houses of the 1st c., one of which has been excavated. Entrance
to the forum, on the N, is through a cardo which runs into the upper corner of
the basilica, the line of which has deviated to the E in relation to the rectangular
plan of the Augustan town indicated by House 1. This house was built during the
Augustan age (Arretine pottery in the deepest levels) and lasted until the 4th
c., with gardens and post-Constantine mosaics. Other urban houses recently identified
include the large House of the Arches, with an extensive hypocaust and cryptoporticus.
A house of the Italic type with an impluvium has been found in the Cuevas Ciegas
area.
Th e theater, with the upper and middle rows of the cavea hewn out
of the bedrock, is much damaged. Part of the frons scaenae remains but is devoid
of any ornamentation, also half of the middle and upper rows of the cavea; the
lowest section (ima), built of masonry, has disappeared. Excavation is now uncovering
part of the substructure of the orchestra, the whole plan, and ornamental remains
of the Corinthian order of the three tiers of the frons scaenae. The drainage
system included an underground collector sewer, the Cueva de Roman, with an outlet
to the N. The ruins have been heavily pillaged for building material and damaged
by cultivation.
Among the finds are a group of freestanding statues, including a fine
statue of Isis (Burgos Museum), a seated Jupiter (whereabouts unknown), and other
sculpture and fragments. Other finds include stelai, inscriptions, and a tropheum
in fragments.
Clunia minted native silver and bronze coins from the time of Sertorius
on, as well as Hispano-Roman asses and semisses under Tiberius, and there is an
unbroken series of imperial coins down to Honorius. Roman intaglios have been
found, perhaps from a local workshop, and much of the pottery is Hispanic terra
sigillata dating from the 1st c. on; the late types of the 4th and 5th c. are
interesting. A 1st c. native potter has been identified, “the potter of birds
and hares,” who painted his vases in the last survival of pre-Roman ceramics.
There is a museum on the site
P. de Palol, 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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