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An offprint from
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edited by
Rebecca J. Sweetman
© Oxbow Books 2011
ISBN 978-1-84217-974-1
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: 100 years of Solitude: colonies in the irst century
of their foundation
R. Sweetman
2. Language and Identity in the Roman Colonies of Sicily
K. Korhonen
3. “A Tale of Two Colonies”: Augusta Emerita (Mérida) and Metellinum (Medellín)
in Roman Lusitania
J. Edmondson
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
A. Jiménez and J. R. Carrillo
5. Imperial cult and imperial reconciliation
P. D. Scotton
6. Between Atticus and Aeneas: the making of a colonial elite at Roman Butrint
I. L. Hansen
7. “Alien settlers consisting of Romans”: identity and built environment
in the Julio-Claudian foundations of Epirus in the century after Actium
W. Bowden
8. Colonia Iulia Nobilis Cnosus, the irst 100 years: the evidence of Italian
sigillata stamps
M. W. Baldwin Bowsky
9. Colonial Space and the City: Augustus’ Geopolitics in Pisidia
A. U. De Giorgi
10. Afterword: Catastrophe and Aftermath
G. Woolf
v
vi
vii
1
7
32
55
75
85
101
117
135
150
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia:
the colony that was founded twice
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
Introduction
Corduba is an exceptionally interesting example for
understanding the different processes associated with
the complex phenomenon of Roman colonisation
and territorial expansion in the provinces. The irst
Roman settlement in the area took place during the
earliest stage of the conquest, at the beginning of
the 2nd c. BCE, in a phase contemporary with the
development of the very concept of colony on the
Italian Peninsula. The archaeological evidence from
Corduba is also especially valuable for exploring the
material culture of a town inhabited from the outset
by Romans and local peoples and for analysing, from
a critical perspective, the relationship between the
legal status and its material representation. In this
respect, our accounts of the monumental character
of colonies can, at least in part, be linked to ancient
discourses on the reproduction of the model of the
city of Rome, or the creation of ‘little Romes’ in
colonies abroad. Corduba can be seen as an example
of an old Republican colony that was refounded
(enlarged, remodeled and embellished) and given
a new name, Colonia Patricia, in the context of
the extensive colonial programmes of Caesar and
Augustus.
In the irst section of this paper, the evidence
provided by the ancient sources on the establishment
of a Roman settlement next to an important native
oppidum is contrasted with the archaeological
remains discovered in the town in recent years.
The traceable changes that occurred in the image
of the town during the irst one hundred years of
the colony are then analysed. Next, we tackle the
question of the coexistence of several discourses on
the meaning of ‘being Roman’ in Colonia Patricia
through a comparison of the representation of
collective identities in public spaces and of individual
or family identities in houses and tombs and their
relevance in the transformation of the Republican
colony of Corduba into the Colonia Patricia of the
early Empire.
The problem of the origins
According to Strabo (III.2.1.), Corduba was founded
by Marcellus and, together with Gades, it was one of
the towns that had grown most in fame and power in
the Turdetania: “…because of the excellence of its
soil and the extent of its territory, though the Baetis
River has also contributed in great measure to its
growth; and it has been inhabited from the beginning
by picked men of the Romans and of the native
Iberians; what is more, the irst colony which the
Romans sent to these regions was that to Corduba.”1
Marcellus has been identiied as the Republican consul
Claudius Marcellus, praetor of Hispania Ulterior and
Hispania Citerior in 169–168 BCE2 and proconsular
legate in Hispania Citerior in 152–151 BCE,3 and
therefore it is usually claimed that Roman Corduba
was founded in the second quarter of the 2nd c. BCE.4
However, this short passage has caused decades of
controversy. The mere mention of Corduba as the
irst colony in southern Spain has been considered
problematic, since we know of at least two Roman
towns founded before 169 BCE: Carteia5 and Italica.6
Carteia should be dismissed, according to Canto
and Stylow,7 since it is located near Gadir on the
Mediterranean coast and in this passage Strabo gives
us information only about Turdetania. The colonial
status of Italica in this early phase remains a thorny
issue, although some scholars include it in the list
of early Republican colonies.8 Also, the very use of
the Greek terms Markéllou ktísma and apoikía are
dificult to interpret. Canto has suggested, taking
into account Casevitz’s work,9 that Strabo, like other
Greek authors of Roman times, used this word not
56
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
to refer to the founder-hero of a Greek colony, as
Greek writers did many centuries before, but to a
‘new founder’ or ‘benefactor’ of the town. If this was
the case, the expression must be then understood in
the context of a profound transformation of a town
where the irst Roman settlement may have taken
place some years before.10 In this respect, the role
of Marcellus could be compared to that of Scipio’s
in Tarraco, which Pliny, describing the Republican
origins of the town, refers to as Scipionum opus.11
Strabo may have used the word apoikía not in the
administrative sense of the colonial foundations of
Caesar and Augustus, something inconceivable in
the mid 2nd c. BCE, but to allude to a contingent of
immigrants, an alternative meaning of the concept
more in tune with the migratory currents from the
Italian Peninsula in the late Republic12 as Bispham
has pointed out, what in the early 2nd c. BCE counted
as a colony, such as a small garrison.13 Recently,
García (2002, 268; 2009, 385) has proposed a
different reading of Strabo, that the reference to the
apoikía must be related to the second phase of the
town founded as a colonia civium Romanorum by
Caesar and not with the Latin colony of Marcellus.
According to this interpretation, Corduba was the
first Roman colony founded by the Romans in
southern Iberia and, therefore, no contradiction is
to be found in considering Cartago Iunonia as the
irst Roman colony established outside Italy (123
BCE) and in asserting that the foundation of Latin
colonies such as Italica and Carteia were earlier
than that of Corduba.
Leaving aside the problematic translation of the
word apoikía in modern texts, and the uncertain
deinition of the legal status of the irst settlement (to
be discussed briely later), it is usually admitted that
Corduba may have enjoyed the status of Latin colony
from the very beginning and probably accommodated
a conventus civium Romanorum.14 In any case, Strabo
describes the town as being inhabited from the start
by individuals selected from the local and Roman
communities.15 This is a characteristic that many
Roman towns of southern Iberia may have had in
common, even in those colonies founded ex nihilo
in the areas surrounding native settlements, although
this fact is not commonly acknowledged by modern
scholars.16 In the case of Corduba, the local elite
must have originated from the native settlement of
Colina de los Quemados, which prompted a “change
of domicile” and the creation of a new town by
adding population from neighbouring settlements,
almost in the fashion of the Greek synoecism.17 It
must also be borne in mind that, according to the
use of the term Romaioi by Hellenistic authors,
the Roman population settled in Corduba must
have been quite heterogeneous, including not only
Roman citizens, but also mostly Italics and probably
also the descendants of Roman soldiers and native
women (hybridae).18 In fact, as Rodríguez Neila has
pointed out, in Hispania Ulterior Italic nomina are
predominant over Roman names, which might be
related to the settling of Italic socii, who served as
auxilia in the Roman army, in important towns like
Tarraco, Emporiae, Carteia, Castulo or Corduba
itself.19
Although speculation on the subject was common
from the sixteenth century on, the exact location
of the pre-Roman settlement of Corduba remained
unknown until the 1960s, when excavations took
place for the irst time on the Colina de los Quemados
(present day Parque Cruz Conde)20 (Fig. 4.1). The
latest archaeological investigations by Murillo have
been crucial for demonstrating that the site had
been occupied from the Copper Age to the end of
the 2nd c. BCE and probably even the beginning
of the 1st c. BCE.21 The data recovered showed for
the irst time that the ‘Turdetanian’ oppidum had not
been abandoned immediately after the foundation of
the Roman settlement, as had been earlier thought.
By the eighth century BCE the native oppidum of
Corduba had become one of the most important
towns on the Guadalquivir River, covering c. 50
hectares, according to some possibly optimistic
estimates.22 There seem to be no evident breaks in the
archaeological record, as is shown by the continuity
of some structures and the typology of pottery
sherds, up to the end of the settlement during the late
Iron Age.23 However, a certain lack of deinition is
characteristic of the site’s 2nd century BCE layers,
leaving open the question of the magnitude of the
impact of the new Roman settlement founded at that
time next to Colina de los Quemados.
The uncertainty about the irst stages of Roman
Corduba is also important. Even though we are still
lacking materials that can be unequivocally linked
to the Roman army in the irst phase of the site, the
idea that the Roman town may have had its origins
in the cannabae of a Roman camp is not new. The
involvement of the army in the origins of Roman
Corduba has been claimed a number of times,24
although not all the researchers agree with this
idea.25
Some of the earliest Roman towns of Hispania,
such as Emporiae26 and Tarraco,27 are believed to
have originated from or have been the result of the
growth of military camps set up next to pre-existing
settlements;28 others were founded, according to
the ancient sources, to settle soldiers that had been
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
57
Figure 4.1. Map of Corduba in the late Republic. On the left, the native oppidum located in Colina de los
Quemados (Parque Cruz Conde), on the right the Roman town founded by Marcellus. Late 3rd c. BCE–2nd
c. BCE (Carrillo et al. 1999, ig. 1).
involved in the early years of the wars in the Iberian
Peninsula, as is the case of Italica29 or Valentia.30
In support of the hypothesis of the existence of a
castellum or praesidium opposite the native town,
right after the beginning of the Roman conquest
of the Iberian Peninsula, the following evidence is
usually enumerated: the mention by several sources
of Corduba as a place of sojourn for the troops in
the early stages of the war,31 some of the geostrategic
characteristics of the colony (control over the
crossing of the Guadalquivir and the harbour to
ship minerals from the neighbouring mountain ranges
and its location at a key communications junction),32
the disproportionate size of the Republican town
(perhaps an indication of its use as a place to station
the troops), and pottery inds that can be dated to
58
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
between the end of the 3rd c. BCE and the irst
quarter of the 2nd c. BCE.33
The earliest archaeological contexts found so far
in the north of the Roman town, which include house
walls, local pottery and Campanian and Dressel 1
amphorae, can be dated to the second quarter of the
2nd c. BCE. At least in this part of the colony, the
irst inhabitants of Roman Corduba lived in houses
built using the same construction techniques as those
found in the pre-Roman oppidum.34 Probably around
the same date, or maybe a little earlier, the impressive
town walls were built. They were two metres thick
with a six-metre agger, a 15–metre deep fosse and
several towers.35
The absence of levels from the irst half of the 2nd
c. BCE in the early Roman towns of Hispania can be
regarded almost as a common pattern. In Tarraco, the
town walls of the irst phase of the upper enclosure
of the Roman castrum have been dated to between
the end of the 3rd c. BCE and the beginning of the
2nd c. BCE, although contemporary structures inside
the enclosure are still missing. However, materials
from this and earlier dates have been recorded in the
native oppidum, located next to the Roman military
base set up by Scipio in 218 BCE in the lower town.36
Another good example from Republican times is
Valentia. Having been founded in 138 BCE after the
settlement of veterans from the wars of conquest in
an uninhabited spot, in the irst stage the town bore
a close resemblance to a Roman camp, including
tents and wooden structures. Probably only some
months later, these dwellings were replaced by new
houses built with masonry foundations and brick
walls, although solid structures only began to appear
in the course of the late 2nd c. BCE.37
The veriication of the irst founding of Corduba
in the early 2nd c. BCE brings us back to the
problem of studying the legal status of the town
and its inhabitants and the early stages of the
Roman colonisation using the written sources of the
early Empire, such as Strabo or Pliny, as our main
interpretative tools. This question goes far beyond the
speciic example of Corduba and applies to the irst
Roman settlements of the earlier provinces, at a stage
when legal formulas of colonization implemented so
far in the Italian Peninsula and the Cisalpin Gaul,
such as the Latin colony, were probably tested for
the irst time after the Second Punic War in the new
conquered land, as the ancient sources show for the
case of Carteia.38 The very meaning of the concept
of ‘colony’ was the subject of antiquarian debate
among different writers in the Gracchan period and
in the 1st century BCE, after the modiication of the
former status of different settlements in the Italian
Peninsula as a consequence of the leges Iulia and
Pompeia.39 The nature and purpose of coloniae seem
to have been more blurred than the clear-cut legal
categories used by modern scholars today. Bispham
has showed how the juridical boundaries between
colonies and other types of settlements, and between
Roman and Latin colonies, usually established in
the archaeological literature since Salmon,40 may
not adequately describe the colonial situation prior
to the late 2nd c. BCE.41 How, for example, did
the ‘citizens’ of colonies established before the
foundation of the irst Roman colony outside Italy
(Carthage, in 123 BCE), perceive themselves and
how were they perceived by others? The conundrum,
in the case of Corduba, as we have seen, has been
solved by stating that the Roman town was founded
irst as Latin colony in the early 2nd c. BCE42 and
remained as such probably up to the time of Caesar
or Augustus, when, after being razed to the ground
for supporting Pompey’s side in the civil wars,43 the
city named Corduba, according to the legends of the
coins,44 was reborn as a colonia civium Romanorum
with a new name: Colonia Patricia. Perhaps the
double tribus traced in the epigraphic record of the
colony (Sergia and Galeria) is the testimony of two
different deductiones, the irst taking place during
the time of Caesar and the second performed by
Augustus with veterans from the Spanish wars.45 A
new series of coins showing the legionary eagle and
two standards and, for the irst time, a completely
Roman name (Colonia Patricia), is usually claimed
as evidence of the settlement of retired soldiers.46
Thus, Corduba could be considered as a colony that
was founded twice, irst probably as a colonia Latina
and later as a colonia civium Romanorum,47 showing
at the same time the extent to which it is important
to make a distinction between the material reality
of the ancient towns, the actual origins of a given
Roman settlement, and its legal status.
The image of a town: the irst one hundred
years of the colony
In the following section we will approach the
question of how the successive changes in the legal
status of Corduba inluenced its town planning and
the settlement of a heterogeneous population group
in the colonia. We will attempt to ascertain whether
there is a direct relationship between the creation of a
colony and the ‘monumentalization’ of civic spaces,48
or if those phenomena could be better interpreted, in
the case of Colonia Patricia, within the framework of
wider a process that affected different regions during
the transition between the Republic and the Empire.
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
59
Figure 4.2. Map of Colonia Patricia in the early Empire. 1. Forum coloniae, 2. Forum adiectum, 3.
Amphitheatre, 4. Bridge over the Gualquivir river, 5. Theatre, 6. Forum provinciae and circus (Courtesy of
J. F. Murillo, Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo of Córdoba).
Finally, we will take into account, in this context,
the dialogue established between the expression
of collective identity symbolized in civic spaces
by public buildings or state symbols and the selfrepresentation of individuals in houses and tombs.
Leaving aside the town walls, which can be
considered the most impressive element of the
Republican town’s urban landscape, the construction
of the irst monumental buildings took place several
generations after the foundation of the settlement and
also some decades after the consolidation of Corduba
as capital of the provincia Ulterior (197 BCE),
probably during the transition from the 2nd to the
1st c. BCE. The existence of an early forum, which
could have been in use during the irst phase of the
town, or at least from the middle of the 2nd c. BCE,
judging from recent excavations,49 is also attested by
ancient sources at least from 112 BCE.50 Around the
transition between the 2nd and the 1st centuries BCE,
a phase of intensive restructuring of the urban fabric
of various Roman towns in southern Hispania,51 new
building techniques (walls built of ashlars covered
with stucco, tegulae and opus signinum) are attested
for the irst time,52 together with the construction
of a new public building associated with an open
space in the south end of Corduba (Section 1, Casa
Carbonell),53 probably a temple with Doric-Tuscan
capitals, similar to that found in the Republican forum
of Ampurias.54 The ancient writers also inform us of
the existence of a forum with a basilica around the
same period (80–70 BCE).55
The destruction of the town by Caesar’s troops
during the civil wars may have left its mark in the
archaeological record, since thick deposits of ashes
and debris dating from this time have been documented
in some stratigraphic sequences,56 although the basic
layout of the street grid and the organisation of public
and private spaces remained unaffected.
During the reign of Augustus, coinciding with
a series of administrative measures that would
transform Colonia Patricia into the capital of the
provincia Baetica and the conventus Cordubensis,
the town underwent a profound programme of
remodelling (Fig. 4.2). The old pomerium was altered
extending the city walls towards the south to meet
the banks of the river;57 the irst stone bridge over
the Guadalquivir and an aqueduct, aqua Augusta,58
were built and the streets were paved with stone slabs
and adorned with porticos and fountains59. Marble
imported from Carrara-Luna was introduced at this
time as a construction material in public buildings
and decorative patterns in fashion in the Urbs were
adopted in certain monuments.60 Some of the larger
civic projects date also from this time. The largest
60
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
theatre in Hispania (Fig. 4.3), based on the model of
the theatre of Marcellus in Rome, was probably built
before 5 BCE,61 and the old Republican forum was
remodelled to meet width-length ratio recommended
by Vitruvius. This space was probably decorated with
the addition of a large temple and a new arch over the
entrance to the square. Soon after, a new forum was
annexed (forum novum or adiectum),62 although it
was not completed until the Julio-Claudian dynasty.63
The design of this new space was inspired by the
forum Augusti in Rome64 and included a temple c.
30 m high, similar to the one consecrated to Mars
Ultor in the capital of the Empire, with columns of
1.59 m in diameter, a group of sculptures with a
colossal representation of Aeneas or, according to
Spannagel,65 Romulus (Fig. 4.4), as well as several
structures with marble facing, in stark contrast to the
stucco or terracotta decoration of the late-Republican
buildings.
Even more ambitious projects were undertaken
during the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The largest
amphitheatre in Hispania known to us so far, with
a capacity of 30,000 spectators, was built outside
the walls, on the western side of the town.66 On the
eastern lank, an enormous structure of three terraces,
with a temple and an altar surrounded by a porticoed
square at the top and a circus at the bottom, created
a new monumental façade for those who approached
the colony from that end.67 Some scholars believe
that this space, completed during the Flavian age,
should be identiied as a provincial forum, where the
cult to the Imperial family for the whole of Baetica
province would have been located.68 In addition to
these large-scale interventions in the town planning
of the colony, it must be remembered that the largest
number of sculptures erected to honour the acts of
evergetism of distinguished citizens also belong to
the Julio-Claudian period,69 probably impacting an
urban landscape that only changed drastically two
hundred years after the establishment of the irst
Roman colony in Corduba, setting the town within a
Mediterranean pattern of transformations undergone
by various towns in the Empire approximately at the
same time, although on different scales.70
The house and the tomb: representing
family and individuals
The irst inhabitants of ‘Roman Cordoba’ are as
dificult to trace in the archaeological record as the irst
public monuments and town planning of the colony.
Despite all the archaeological research conducted in
the city in recent decades, it has been impossible to
ind evidence of the pre-Roman necropoleis. However,
a few years ago Murillo published a summary of the
materials found in a cremation tomb that belonged to
a necropolis in use, in his opinion, between the 7th
and the 2nd c. BCE and located in the eastern part
of Parque Cruz Conde.71 According to him, a number
of tombs from this cemetery were plundered in the
early 1990s and the artefacts were dispersed in several
private collections. He announced in this article that
he was conducting a study of the materials from the
site, of which the data on this tomb, consisting of a
painted funerary urn, a bowl and a lagynos,72 were an
advance (Fig. 4.5). This humble burial is of enormous
relevance: irstly, because pre-Roman necropoleis
are few in the area identiied by archaeologists as
Turdetania, known from the ancient texts and also
because the possible causes of this absence in the
archaeological record of Andalusia have become the
subject of a vehement debate among scholars;73 and
secondly, because it is the oldest record of funerary
practices in Cordoba known to date and it documents
roughly the time of the irst Roman foundation next to
the native settlement. Moreover, the inds published
to date show that at least some of the Republican
forefathers of the subsequent Roman colony made use
of a characteristic painted local urn as a receptacle
for their ashes and covered them with a drinking
bowl, following a standard funerary ritual in the
Mediterranean areas of pre-Roman Iberia. Corduba
was, in this respect no exception, since this type of
burial and funerary receptacle were still in use in
Colonia Patricia and other Roman towns in southern
Iberia well into the years of the early Empire.74
The Republican phase houses are also barely
known, although it is possible to confirm that
thirty or forty years after the founding of the irst
settlement, by the mid 2nd c. BCE, most of them
were still made of rubble bases and mud walls, a
construction technique also used, incidentally, in
the ancient and contemporary native settlement.75
The irst tombs we know of in the Roman town are
even later and have been dated to almost a century
after the irst Roman settlement, between the end of
the 2nd c. BCE and the beginning of the 1st c. BCE.
Precisely at that time a change in private architecture
was introduced and for the irst time houses with an
atrium and perhaps a peristyle were built with ashlar
masonry and tegulae roofs. These houses also had
stucco walls and signinum loors (Fig. 4.6).76 These
changes coincide with the progressive abandonment
of the native town of Colina de los Quemados, where
the most recent evidence belongs to the beginning
of the 1st c. BCE.
It is almost two hundred years after the establishment
of the irst Roman apoikía in Corduba that some
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
61
Figure 4.3. Plan of the different levels of the Roman theatre of Colonia Patricia (After Ventura 2002, igs
5, 6 and 7).
62
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
important changes can be seen in the funerary contexts
of the town. With the location of monuments at this
time along the roads leading out of the town from
different gates in the walls, the cemeteries of Colonia
Patricia resembled the funerary areas of other Roman
towns on the Italian and the Iberian peninsulas. The
very concept of displaying the tombs in this way
implies a new notion of the funerary space and what
was then thought of as an appropriate place for
ancestors. Before the Roman conquest, necropoleis
were usually located at some distance from the town,
typically in a near hill or area that could be seen from
the settlement. On the other hand, during the early
years of the Empire in Colonia Patricia a gallery of
ancestors (represented by gladiatorial gravestones,
funerary enclosures with altars and statues, chamber
tombs, funerary aediculae and monuments decorated
with reliefs) greeted passers-by as they entered or left
the town.77 Tombs were then also placed, following
the Roman custom, outside the religious limits of the
pomerium, sometimes in funerary plots measured in
Roman units (in agro pedes, in fronte pedes), as can
Figure 4.4 (left). Thoracata, interpreted as a
representation of Romulus or Aeneas. (Baena 2007).
Figure 4.5 (below). Pre-Roman oppidum of Corduba.
Objects from a tomb found in Parque Cruz Conde
(Colina de los Quemados) (after Murillo and Jiménez
Salvador 2002, 186).
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
be read in inscriptions found in Cordoba.78 We also
see at the time a novel need to record the name of the
deceased on epigraphs carved in stone, and in doing
so, leaving behind evidence of their place within a
nexus of social relationships,79 something previously
unknown in the local cemeteries of southern Iberia. In
fact, one of the highest concentrations of gladiatorial
epitaphs outside Rome has been unearthed in Colonia
Patricia along a Roman road that leads to the recently
discovered amphitheatre.80 The inscriptions must have
been placed not only in stelae, but also in the walls
of funerary enclosures and other types of structures,
including funerary altars and aediculae, similar to
those that were being erected on the Italian Peninsula
or in the Urbs.81 At the western gate of the town
were even built, in the late irst c. BCE, a pair of
monuments resembling the tomb of Augustus itself
(Fig. 4.7).82 These new cemeteries, reminiscent of their
Roman counterparts, can only be fully understood
when analysed in conjunction with the coexistence
of alternative ways of honouring the dead in Colonia
Patricia.83 Fancy memorials and gladiators’ epitaphs
were intermingled in some funerary spaces with tombs
in which the ashes of the dead were kept in painted
funerary pots very similar to those used for the same
purpose in the region for four hundred years before
Augustus84 (Fig. 4.8). At the beginning of the 1st
century CE a drinking bowl was used to seal the top of
such containers, as was also customary in pre-Roman
necropoleis. However, it is very important to bear in
mind that this sort of pottery, which has only been
found in small quantities in the contemporary town,
was not an exact copy of the Iberian types, but Roman
ware freely inspired in the linear painted decorations
and the shape of ancient local urns to confer on these
receptacles a ‘traditional’ appearance. The comparison
of different burial areas in the same town is relevant
in this respect. Local pottery predominates in some
funerary areas of Roman Corduba, such as Camino
Viejo de Almodóvar, while imports such as sigillata
seem to have been virtually absent in the early years
of the Empire.85 In other necropoleis in the town,
such as La Constancia, the lower percentage of local
pottery found during excavations masks the fact that,
although traditional ware is not abundant, its presence
and function are signiicant, as the painted local ware
usually corresponds, precisely, to the funerary urn.86
With regard to funerary spaces, the founding
of a Roman colony in Colonia Patricia meant not
only the reframing of the Italic material culture in
the provinces, but also the development of ways
particular to the region of expressing a link with
local pasts. In the new cemeteries of the colony,
which were divided into Roman funerary plots
63
Figure 4.6. Roman Corduba. Domus found under the
ancient palace Castejón (Photo A. Cánovas).
and located along the roadsides during the 1st c.
CE, sometimes no memorials of the Roman type
were to be found, only the traditional painted urns
accompanied by some grave goods, as well as simple
inhumations or even funerary chambers similar to
the Punic hypogea from North Africa (Fig. 4.9). In
fact, some architectural and ritual aspects of these
underground funerary chambers are reminiscent of
the Punic necropoleis of southern Iberia, including
that of Villaricos (Almería), where this type of tomb
was in use between the 6th/5th c. BCE and the early
Empire,87 or that of Carmona (Seville). The Carmona
funerary chambers (dated to the 1st and 2nd c. CE),
as well as three monumental tombs found in Cordoba
and some monuments from Punic necropoleis, 88
had in common the presence of an entrance ritually
blocked with ashlars that were only removed to
bury a new body. This feature would have made
it dificult to enter the tomb during the mandatory
visit to the dead that was part of Roman festivities
such as lemuria or parentalia. Instead, libations were
probably poured through the ritual cavities found in
some of the Carmona and Corduba chambers.
64
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
Figure 4.7. Colonia Patricia, western necropolis next to one of the monumental gates of the city. Virtual
model of the mausolea found on Paseo de la Victoria (Murillo et al. 2002, ig. 20).
Figure 4.8. Colonia Patricia, western necropolis. Local funerary urns found in Camino Viejo de Almodovar,
according to the typology of García Matamala (Modiied from García Matamala 2002, igs 2, 4, 6, 7 and
9. No scale in the original igures).
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
65
Figure 4.9. Colonia Patricia. Northern necropolis. Chamber tomb found in Bodega St. (after Vaquerizo,
2002b, ig. 17).
Thus, the most important changes in funerary
commemorations took place during the time of
Augustus, approximately at the same time as the
second foundation of the town. However, it is
very important to state that this transformation
happened simultaneously in other settlements in
the province, where we ind funerary monuments
that ‘resemble’ their Roman counterparts, regardless
of their legal status. It was precisely at this time
that Rome itself underwent a transformation in the
ways of remembering the dead through monumental
architecture.89 In the context of the new monuments
that were erected in the forum and along the roadsides,
the existence of a dialogue between different ways of
commemorating family ancestors in the tombs and
the images of ‘collective’ Rome forefathers depicted
in public spaces is especially meaningful.90
From Corduba to Colonia Patricia
According to a frequently quoted passage by Aulus
Gellius (NA 16, 13, 9.), the Roman colonies in the
Empire were “quasi eigies parvae simulacraque”,
a relection, almost a ‘double’ (a small copy), of
the Urbs itself. Corduba could thus be seen as a
provincial mirror, something that ‘resembles’, but
cannot be compared with the greatness of the city
of Rome. As archaeologists and historians interested
in the so-called ‘Romanization’ process, we have
searched carefully for signs of this desire to create
small, although imperfect, ‘Romes’ in the provincial
colonies and other towns. However, the statement
should be placed in the administrative, legal 91
and certainly propagandistic context of Hadrianic
times, where it belongs.92 According to Zanker, the
slow pace of urban development in Rome and its
particular layout meant that the Urbs was a dificult
model to imitate in speciic ways. The imitation of
the outward appearance of Rome was limited to
speciic urban political structures and buildings, such
as the forum (including a comitium and a curia), the
basilica or the baths. However, Zanker argues that
“‘Romanization’ can also be understood as something
abstract and idealized, that is, the notion of how a
Roman imagined the ideal city (or certain elements
of this ideal city) ought to look… .”93 This could
explain why colonies abroad did not look like Rome,
but did look like each other, because of the presence
of a cardo and a decumanus that intersected in a
central public square and certain public buildings.94
To what extent these provincial towns tell us more
about an evolving provincial idea of the Roman town
66
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
than about a static and unitary Roman idea of a city
is open to further exploration.
It is certainly interesting to note that the
best examples of the aforementioned emulation
phenomenon took place in political spaces that were
particularly useful for Imperial propaganda, such
as theatres or fora. Caryatids and clipei decorated
with the head of Zeus-Ammon and Medusa, similar
to those placed in the forum of Augustus in Rome,
have been unearthed in the three provincial capitals
of Hispania: Corduba, 95 Tarraco 96 and Emerita
Augusta.97 Perhaps even more important for building
of a collective identity through the setting of images
in the forum was the placement of sculptures closely
linked to the ‘ancestors’ of the Imperial family and
the Roman people, including the kings of Alba Longa
or Aeneas with Ascanius.98 This attempt to mimic
the metropolis, which can be seen particularly in
certain urban spaces or in buildings often related to
the Imperial cult, such as theatres, can be equated to
the discourse spread by the literary sources during
the reign of Augustus.99 Both can be considered
as parallel elite discourses taking place during a
signiicant phase of intensive change that would turn
the conquered land into provinces and Rome into
the capital of an Empire. It is quite probable that
some kind of nexus existed at this time between the
ability to read Latin texts and the capacity to ‘read’
or interpret the symbols displayed in the forum and
the building of a Roman identity in the colonies.
The old Corduba, the defeated town that had
supported Pompey during the civil war and had
been razed to the ground by Cesar, was reborn as
Colonia Patricia. The adjective ‘Patricia’ added to
the new name given to the city after its refoundation
has been interpreted in different ways. Traditionally
a connection with a single famous ancestor, Caesar,
of patrician origins, as founder or deductor, has been
made by modern scholars.100 However, it is certainly
interesting to verify the presence in some colonies of
southern Iberia of names that could be loosely linked
to alleged Roman/Italic forefathers or founders.101
Apart from Colonia Patricia, the examples of Iulia
Romula Hispalis (a reference to Romulus), Iulia
Genetiva Urbanorum (a name that links the town to
the Urbs) or Italica (founded according to the ancient
sources by retired allied Italic troops after the Punic
wars) could be cases in point.
Colonia Patricia became a colonia civium
Romanorum not by chance during the implementation
of the ambitious colonization programme carried out
by Caesar and Augustus, at a time when most of the
colonies were promoted or founded in Baetica and
built over or next to pre-existing local towns (Fig.
4.10).102 Pliny mentions nine:103 Colonia Patricia/
Corduba, Colonia Romula Hispal, Hasta Regia,
Asido Caesarina, Augusta Fima Astigi, Augusta
Gemella Tucci, Ituci Virtus Iulia, Ucubi Clairtas Iulia
and Iulia Genitiva Urbanorum Urso. According to
some scholars, another four towns in southern Iberia
may be added to the list: Colonia Iulia Gemella
Acci,104 Colonia Salariense, Italica105 and Colonia
Iliturgitana,106 although the legal status of the last
two is particularly problematic. Some of these towns
acquired their new status during Caesar’s reign only
as titular colonies, meaning that even though they
may already have accommodated a conventus civium
Romanorum, there was no real deductio of citizens,
which has obvious implications for our analysis of
the composition of the town’s population; it was
more common in Augustan foundations to settle new
citizens, frequently veterans from the army. The irst
foundation of Corduba in the early 2nd c. BCE must,
in any case, be placed within a context in which the
very process of creating ixed colonial categories in
the provinces was taking place. While the ‘second’
foundation, in the second half of the 1st c. BCE,
coincides with an extensive political programme of
colonization in southern Hispania and the creation of
a monumental setting in many towns, regardless of the
date they were founded or their legal status. It might be
possible to ind here a common pattern with the other
provincial capitals in Hispania, such as Tarraco, which
was also founded during the Republic (although its
legal status in this early phase remains hard to deine as
well) and was probably granted later the title of Roman
colony during the time of Caesar (49 BCE).107 Emerita
Augusta, appointed as the capital of the provincia
Lusitania and as a Roman colony by Augustus,
received also in 25 BCE a deductio of veterans
from the Cantabrian wars under this Emperor.108
In Corduba, the old name of the town disappears
in the oficial records that have come down to us,
almost after the fashion of a damnatio memoriae.109
However, the brand-new Colonia Patricia, refounded
in the time of Caesar and Augustus, transforms
itself into a monumental scenario, essential for
Imperial propaganda in southern Hispania. Colonia
Patricia became then the capital of the conventus
and the capital of Baetica province, as the result
of the administrative reforms of the irst emperor.
Colonia Patricia, the seat of the governor, received
a deductio probably of veterans from the Cantabrian
wars. To pay these soldiers, Augustus minted in
Colonia Patricia a series of coins with a particular
connection to the Imperial propaganda and the
honours granted by the senate to Octavius. Around
this time, Colonia Patricia became a particularly
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
67
Figure 4.10. Roman Republican foundations and colonies of southern Hispania (Blank map courtesy of F.
Quesada and J. de Hoz. Research projects PB97/0057 and Hesperia).
attractive place for the elites of the region, who were
eager to establish connections with members of the
Imperial administration or to be promoted to one
of the privileged ordines.110 Leaving aside Tarraco,
Corduba stands out in our records as having produced
the highest number of equites from Hispania. From
Italica and Corduba come too the largest number of
Baetican senators known to us. The fact that Corduba
at the time offered a wide range of opportunities
may also explain the presence of other population
groups. According to a recent survey, Corduba was,
at least qualitatively, the Baetican town that received
the largest number of alieni and immigrants from
Hispania during the early Empire.111 It is interesting
to turn now to the metaphor of Rome as a cosmopolis
advanced by Edwards and Woolf. During the early
Empire, the trope of the Urbs as a cosmopolis or the
epitome of the civilized world appears in the texts
of some authors in parallel to the presence in Rome
of works of art or spoils from different conquered
regions. The city absorbed the world by placing in a
new context objects and images dragged from distant
lands now under the Roman control but, at the same
time and to a certain extent, was itself taken in by the
world, as citizens of different origins created small
colonies in the capital of the Empire.112 Meanwhile,
in the provinces, different representations of the
ideal Roman town were implemented, especially in
monumental settings, but also new interpretations of
local identities in contrast to, or in dialogue with, an
image of Rome that was perceived diversely.
The metaphor of provincial colonies as a multiple
mirror of the magniicence of Rome can be qualiied
through the study of private spaces such as cemeteries.
The Roman town was a mixture, as Zanker113 has
reminded us, of both state planning and a long
term process carried out by its inhabitants, which
is especially true in Baetica, where most Roman
towns were ‘founded’ above of or next to preRoman settlements. The relection of the image of
Rome is thus much more complex and interesting.
In this new scenario it is possible to see provincial
capitals such as Colonia Patricia, the recipients of
a ready-made set of symbols of the Imperial power,
as cosmopolitan centres. In these towns alternative
or parallel versions of the meaning of being a citizen
of Corduba were as ‘real’ as those offered by the
oficial Roman history on the expansion of its own
culture all over the Mediterranean.
Acknowledgements
Some of the ideas presented in this paper have been
explored in greater depth in Jiménez (2008a). We are
grateful to the editors of the volume, to an anonymous
referee, to Estela García (Universidad Complutense
de Madrid) and Juan José R. Villarías (CSIC) for
their comments on an earlier version of the text and
also to all the participants in the conference “100
years of Solitude” held at St. Andrews University
(12th–14th September 2007) for their feed-back. We
would also like to thank Sebastián Vargas (CSIC) and
68
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
Antonio Jesús Pinto (CSIC) for their generous help
during the writing of the text. Research funded by
the European Social Fund (I3P-CSIC). Project HUM
2007 – 64045/HIST).
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Notes
1.
2.
3.
English translation by Horace Leonard Jones, The Loeb
Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass) 1960: πλεῖστον δ’,
ἥ τε Κóρδυβα ηὔξηται, Μαρκέλλου κτíσμα, καì δóξῃ
καì δυνáμει, καì ἡ τῶν Γαδιτανῶν πόλις, ἡ μὲν διὰ τὰς
ναυτιλίας καὶ διὰ τὸ προσθέσθαι ῾Ρωμαίοις κατὰ συμμαχίας,
ἡ δὲ χώρας ἀρετῇ καὶ μεγέθει, προσλαμβάνοντος καὶ
τοῦ ποταμοῦ Βαίτιος μέγα μέρος· ᾤκησάν τε ἐξ ἀρχῆς
῾Ρωμαίον τε καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων ἄνδρες ἐπίλεκτοι· καὶ
δὴ καὶ πρώτην ἀποικίαν ταύτην εἰς τούσδε τοὺς τόπους
ἔστειλαν ῾Ρωμαῖοι.
Liv. XLV.4.
App., Iber. 48–49.
72
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
Some authors have shown their preference for the irst of
these dates (Knapp, 1983, 10; Stylow, 1990, 262; Stylow,
1996, 77–78). Rodríguez Neila (1992, 177) however
considers 152 /151 BCE as a more likely date for the
foundation of Corduba. See Stylow 1996: note 1 and
Knapp, 1983, note 61 for previous references. Canto has
proposed a completely different interpretation, assimilating
the Marcellus of the Strabonian text with the ill-fated
nephew of Augustus (Canto 1991; eadem 1997). The main
criticism of this hypothesis is found in Stylow, 1996 and
Ventura Villanueva 2008, 89–91.
Founded as a colonia Latina in 171 BCE, according to
Livy 43.2.3.
According to Appian (Ib. 38. 153), Publius Cornelius
Scipio chose to settle the soldiers wounded in the battle of
Ilipa (Alcalá del Río, Seville) in 206–205 BCE in a town
he named Italica after Italy.
Canto 1991, 847–8, Stylow et al. (eds) 1995, 61; Stylow
1996, 80.
See infra for a brief discussion on the legal status of early
Republican colonies in southern Iberia. See note 105 on
the colonial status of Italica. Some scholars have adopted
a restrictive view of the colonial phenomenon in this area
and include only Carteia in the group of early Republican
colonies, while others consider that towns such as Corduba,
Italica or Castulo can be also regarded as Latin colonies.
See González Román 1998, 131, note 6; Marín 2002, 281
and Bandelli 2002, 121–2 with previous bibliography.
Casevitz 1985.
Canto 1991, 847. Canto made this point in connection
with the identiication of Marcellus with the nephew of
Augustus, but the correct interpretation of the term is
relevant in a general sense.
Plin. NH 3.21. Castillo 1974, 191; Rodríguez Neila 1981, 112.
Rodríguez Neila 1992, 181.
Bispham 2006, 83, 122.
Stylow 1996, 80; Knapp 1983, 11; Ventura 2008, 100;
García 2009. According to the latter (2009, 379), all the
colonies founded ex novo in Hispania during the 2nd c.
BCE, like Italica, Carteia or Corduba must be considered
Latin colonies of Italian type, which followed the colonial
model implemented in Italy probably until the foundation
of Aquileia in 181 BCE. They had a military nature and
were located in strategic positions to stabilize recently
conquered regions.
Trying to isolate the native population through prosographic
studies has proven to be dificult (Knapp, 1983: note 76).
Other evidence to take into account when analysing the
hybrid nature of the Roman town are the high percentages
of Roman imported ware attested in the Republican
colony compared to the native oppidum, native building
techniques, references to ancient Etruscan cults (Bendala
1981, 45), the survival of a non-Latin pre-Roman town
name (Corduba) (Rodríguez Neila 1981, 108) or the use
of some archaic Latin words in the 1st c. BCE (Blanco,
1970: 109).
González Román, 2002, 61.
Bendala 1990, 32; idem 2003, 28.
Knapp 1977, 138; Stylow 1996, 78.
Rodríguez Neila 1992, 180.
Bernier and Fortea 1963; Luzón and Ruiz Mata 1973.
Murillo 1995, 196, with previous bibliography. The study
of the pottery sequence has been updated by León Pastor
2007.
22. It is necessary to remember that the size of Corduba in the
late Republic – probably one of the largest Roman towns of
the time in the Iberian Peninsula – has been calculated in 47
hectares (Vaquerizo 1996, ed., 26; Carrillo et al. 1999, 42).
23. Murillo, 1995; Murillo and Vaquerizo 1996, 39–40;
Carrillo et al. 1999, 38–9.
24. Bendala 1990, 33; Rodríguez Neila, 1992, 178, 186; Murillo
and Vaquerizo 1996, 42; Ventura Martínez 1996, 56; Carrillo
et al. 1999, 41; Murillo and Jiménez Salvador 2002, 184–7;
Murillo 2004, 39–40; Vaquerizo 2005, 171–2.
25. Against this hypothesis Knapp 1983, 9: “…permanent
legionary bases were not normal at this period; arrangements
varied from year to year according to the theatres and
fortunes of war. Troops were billeted in various towns,
not in a single camp, for the winter months. At best, the
prefoundation Roman presence at Córdoba was limited to
some resident Roman businessmen and, perhaps, a garrison
such as that attested at Ilipa, a little downstream from the
town.” See also Stylow 1996, 78–9 and most recently
Cadiou 2008, 351–2, 359–60.
26. The archaeological evidence of the irst Roman fortiication
is still scarce in Emporiae. See Morillo and Aurrecoechea
eds, 2006, 242–5, for a recent summary on the literary and
archaeological evidence.
27. The literary and archaeological evidence has also been
recently summarized in Morillo and Aurrecoechea eds,
2006, 281–287.
28. See, however, the criticisms to the evidence traditionally
related to the presence of permanent praesidia in these
cities in Cadiou 2008, 328–50.
29. Apian Iber. 38. A section of ditch excavated in El Olivar
to the west of Santiponce was identiied as part of a
rectangular Roman camp. However, it is difficult to
ascertain, on the one hand, if the ditch enclosed the whole
settlement and on the other, rectangular military camps
are not characteristic of this early date (Keay 1997, 28;
Galsterer, 1997, 52).
30. Liv., Per. 55. Recent excavations seem to conirm the
possibility of the existence of an early military camp in
Valentia. The archaeological evidence consist mainly of
foundation of huts, alignments of stones from the barracks,
postholes from tents, remains of bonires, sallow ditches,
rubbish deposits and a large midden (Ribera i Lacomba
2006, 79–80).
31. Polib. XXXV, 22; Sal., Hist., II, 20, 28; App., Ib., 65–66;
Cic., Pro Arch., 26; Bell. Hisp., IV, VI, XII. Although
this does not imply that the troops were always stationed
intra-muros (Stylow 1996; Cadiou 2008, 369).
32. Corduba was located in the intersection of the so-called
via Heraclea (that linked Tarraco, Valentia and Corduba)
and the road that reached Castra Caecilia, crossing in
its way Carteia, Munda and Corduba. For that reason,
Corduba became a strategic centre, both for controlling the
territories south of the Guadalquivir and as military base
for the troops involved in the conquest of the Meseta in
the north. That explains the frequent reference to Cordoba
during the 1st c. BCE as a place to station the troops during
the winter, especially in the 1st c. BCE (Sillières, 2003).
33. Rodríguez Neila 1976, 113; idem 1981, 115; Bendala, 2003,
20; Murillo and Jiménez Salvador, 2002, 189; Hita et al.
1993; Carrillo et al. 1999, 42, note 8; Sillières 2003, 33.
Unfortunately these materials come from two tips, where
the debris from a couple of construction plots had been
dumped. The location of one of them is unknown, but the
4. Corduba/Colonia Patricia: the colony that was founded twice
other was for sure situated outside the Roman walls. The
ive sherds dated before the 2nd c. BCE can be identiied
as Morel 2234a 1, 2764a 1, 1324c 1, P321b 2, 7712 (Hita
et al. 1993). Other ceramics found in the centre of the
Republican city or in one of its roads can only be loosely
dated to the irst half of the 2nd c. BCE (Ventura Martínez,
1992; Ventura Martínez, 1996). Recent rescue excavations
in different points of the city, the forum of the colony and
the decumanus maximus seem to conirm the early date
of some of the ceramics found in Corduba. Carrillo et al.
1999, 42, note 8; Murillo and Jiménez Salvador, 2002,
184.
34. Murillo and Vaquerizo 1996, 45; Carrillo, 1999: 75; Murillo
and Jiménez Salvador 2002, 184, 189–92.
35. Murillo and Jiménez Salvador 2002, 187.
36. Murillo and Vaquerizo 1996, 46; Ventura Villanueva, León
and Márquez, 1998, 91; Ruiz de Arbulo 2002, idem 2006;
146; Morillo and Aurrecoechea eds 2006, 287.
37. Marín and Ribera i Lacomba 2002: 289, 297. Ribera i
Lacomba 2006, 80.
38. Liv., 43, 3, 1–4. Rome had founded Latin colonies in Gallia
Cisalpina during the 3rd century, but this process ends in
the Italian Peninsula quite likely with the establishment
of Aquileia in 181 BCE (Lafi 2002; García 2009, 383).
39. Bispham 2006, 83–5. The earliest contemporary reference to
any kind of colonia is recorded in an inscription from earlysecond-century Aquileia (CIL I2 621, Bispham 2006, 81).
The town was founded in 181 BCE, therefore, after Italica
(206–205 BCE) and just some years earlier than Carteia
(171 BCE) and Corduba (169–168/152–151 BCE).
40. E. T. Salmon, Roman Colonization under the Republic,
London, 1969.
41. Bispham 2006, 84.
42. See note 14.
43. Caes. Bell. Hisp. 34.
44. The irst series are dated to the beginning of the 1st c.
BCE. Chaves 1977; Amela 2004; García-Bellido, 2006.
45. Ventura Villanueva (2008) has suggested in a recent article
that the deductor of the Roman colony under Caesar might
have been C. Asinius Pollio during his stay as governor
in Cordoba between 44–43 BCE. It is known now (thanks
to the information contained in the new bronze found in
Osuna – Lex Coloniae Genetivae Iuliae, cap. XV) that
he probably acted as deductor in other colonies of the
provincia Ulterior such as Urso (Caballos 2006, 340–1).
46. However, we must bear in mind that this type of images are
not unusual in the coinage of Roman colonies, regardless
of the origin of the irst citizens. Ripollès 1998, 346.
47. Stylow 1990, 263; idem 1996, 80–81; Knapp 1983, 28;
García 2002; Marín 2002, 287.
48. The bibliography on the monuments and public spaces of
Corduba/Colonia Patricia is too numerous to be quoted
here. For an overview on this vast topic see: Carrillo et
al. 1999; von Hesberg 1996; León 1999; Márquez 1998a,
1999, 2005; Murillo 2004; Stylow 1990; Vaquerizo
2003, 2005, 2006; Ventura Villanueva 2003; Ventura
and Márquez, 2005; Ventura et al. 1998, with previous
references.
49. Carrasco 2001, 205; Márquez 2004c, 56.
50. Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 56.
51. Bendala and Roldán 1999.
52. Murillo 2004, 44
53. León 1999, 40.
54. Márquez 1998c, 122, Fig. 17.
55.
73
Bel. Alex. 52, 2. Márquez 1998b. See also Ventura
Villanueva, 2007a for the date, location and denomination
of this building.
56. Some Republican buildings were also demolished around the
same phase, and structures with a different orientation were
built over them in Imperial times. Hidalgo 1993, 105.
57. Carrillo et al. 1999, 46.
58. Ventura Villanueva 1993, idem 1996.
59. Murillo 2004, 46.
60. Von Hesberg 1996; Ventura Villanueva et al. 1998, 95.
61. Ventura Villanueva 1999; Ventura Villanueva et al. (eds)
2002.
62. Márquez 1998a, 176 ff., idem 2004a, 109–17.
63. Ventura Villanueva, 2007b; See also Fishwick 2000 and
2004, 79–83.
64. Márquez 1998a, 178.
65. Spannagel 1999, 132. For possible representations of
summi viri, see López 1998. Trillmich (1996, 1998) was
the irst to establish a connection between the iconographic
programme of the forum of Augustus in Rome and similar
representations found in the capitals of the Hispanic
provinces. The same phenomenon has been described in
towns such as Arlés, Pompei, Vienne or Nyon. See infra
and note 97.
66. The irst references to these indings have been published
in Vaquerizo (ed.) 2003.
67. Murillo et al. 2001.
68. Murillo et al. 2003, 65 ff. In recent years there has been a
lively debate about the identiication of the public spaces of
the city in relation to the Imperial cult and its “provincial”
or “colonial” character. See, for example, Fishwick 2004,
Garriguet 2002, Panzram 2003 and most recently the new
proposal by Ventura Villanueva 2007b, 234–236.
69. Stylow et al. (eds) 1995.
70. For the concept of the ‘Roman cultural revolution’ and the
important changes in Augustan times see Wallace-Hadrill
2008 and Woolf 1998, 238 with further references.
71. Murillo and Jiménez Salvador 2002, 186.
72. M5422/Lamb. 59, 210–190 BCE.
73. Escacena 1987, idem 1989, idem 1992, 332–334; Escacena
and Belén 1994; Bendala 1992; Jiménez 2006; eadem
2008a, 73–4, 140–5.
74. The survival of the traditional painted ware in Imperial
times was a fact already noticed by García y Bellido
in the early 1950s (García y Bellido 1952, 42). The
‘survival’ of local pottery used as funerary urns has been
noticed in other early Roman towns of Hispania, such
as Tarraco (Remolà 2004), Valentia (García-Prosper and
Guerin 2002), Carthago Nova (Ramallo 1989, 122) or
Lucentum (Jiménez Salvador 2002, 195). On the problem
of establishing an accurate chronology for the pre-Roman
pottery of southern Spain see Ruiz and Molinos (1993,
23–52). For the “characteristically Iberian” painted ware
of Oliva-Llíria and Elche-Archena, displaying complex
iconographies depicting hunters, warriors and women
wearing local dresses, produced precisely during the irst
two centuries of the Roman occupation in some areas
of the Mediterranean coast, see various contributions in
Olmos and Rouillard (2004) and also the synthesis in
Olmos 1994 and Conde 1998 with previous bibliographical
references.
75. Murillo and Vaquerizo 1996, 45; Murillo and Jiménez
Salvador 2002, 184, 189–92.
76. Carrillo 1999; Vaquerizo 2004.
74
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
Alicia Jiménez and José R. Carrillo
Vaquerizo 2001; idem 2008, 80–93; Ruiz Osuna 2007.
Vaquerizo 2002c; Vaquerizo and Sánchez 2008.
Woolf 1996, 29.
Stylow et al. 1995; Jiménez 2008a, 291–2, 327–8, with
previous references.
Vaquerizo 2008, 93–7.
Vaquerizo 2001; idem 2002a; idem 2002b; Márquez 2002;
Murillo et al. 2002.
See Mattingly 2004, 22; idem 2006, passim, for the concept
of ‘discrepant experiences’.
Van Dommelen, 2001a: 81; idem, 2001b: 141 on the
notion of ‘local culture’ in the regions conquered by
Rome and the importance of this concept to go beyond
binary oppositions such as Roman:native in our analysis
of provincial cultures.
On the contrary imported Campanian ware was present in
the earlier layers of this cemetery. García Matamala 2002,
idem 2002–2003. Jiménez 2008a, 343.
Vargas 2002, 298, ig. 8; Jiménez 2008a, 273–4.
Astruc 1951; Almagro Gorbea 1984.
Carmona and Punic necropolis, Bendala, 1976, 36, 82–83;
idem 2002, 150–152. See for the hypogea on Calle de la
Bodega, Palacio de la Merced and the so-called “Gran
Tumba” of Camino Viejo de Almodóvar, Jiménez 2008a,
261–2, 266–7, 285, with previous references.
Gros 2001, 440–443; von Hesberg 1992, 26–37.
See van Dommelen 2007 and Jiménez 2008b for a critical
approach to the relation between ‘traditional-looking’
material culture and different forms of resistance.
However, even from a legal point of view, many Roman
colonies in southern Spain did not enjoy all the privileges
attached to this status in Italy and therefore can not be
compared to Rome in this sense. Only Acci was granted the
ius italicum, according to the ancient sources; Tucci, Ituci,
Ucubi, Urso and Astigi were endowed with inmunitas and
the rest did not have special privileges (González Román
1991, 92–93).
Torelli 1988, 65–6; Bispham 2006, 78–9. For a different
interpretation see Zanker (2000, 41): “In this famous
passage, Gellius is apparently not interested in the concrete
physical appearance of these cities, but rather their
aesthetic effect and the quality of life that they offered
their people.”
Zanker 2000, 26.
Bispham, 2006, 75.
See Márquez (2004b, 342, ig. 8) for a clipeus that has been
recently put in connection to the so-called forum adiectum
of the colonia. A statue from the Tienda collection has been
identiied as a representation of Aeneas or Romulus (see
Fig. 4.4 and note 65).
Taller Escola d’Arqueologia 1989; Mar (ed.) 1993.
In Mérida clipei and caryatids, as well as fragments of
sculptures dressed in a toga picta have been found; these
probably correspond to representations of summi viri, a
igure that might have been a portrait of a mythical king
of Alba Longa and a depiction of Aeneas, Ascanio and
Anquises related to the light from Troy. Attention has also
been brought to an inscription interpreted as an elogium
of Aeneas by de la Barrera and Trillmich. See Trillmich
1996; idem 1998; de la Barrera and Trillmich 1996;
Nogales and Álvarez 2006 and Nogales 2008 with previous
bibliography. Recently, A. Peña 2007 has suggested that
the model of the forum of Augustus in Rome was also
followed in Hispania by Roman towns other than the
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
108.
109.
110.
111.
112.
113.
provincial capitals, such us Italica, where fragments of
clipei and monumental statues have also been found.
Zanker 1987, 230–55 Spannagel 1999; Haselberger 2007,
156–160.
It is true that similar images can also be found in the
decoration of private spaces or objects, however, the
meaning usually changes within different contexts and, for
example, the image of Aeneas carrying his father Ascanio
on his shoulder can be read more as a symbol of individual
loyalty and pietas than as a sign of political support for
the Imperial family (Zanker 1987, 321–5).
For a summary of the main views on this issue, see Vaquerizo
2005, 169 ff.; Canto (1991, 855–6) suggests a possible
relation with the homage paid to the Senate (the patres) by
Augustus, an idea rejected by Stylow (1996, 81).
Rodríguez Neila has collected a series of examples in
Rome and provincial towns, where it is possible to trace
a connection between the supposed ethnic origin of the
population and the name of a vicus, such as the vicus Tuscus
in Rome. It was also not unusual to name provincial vici after
the vici of the Urbs, as we can see from the vicus Patricius
in the Colonia Caesarea Antiochia. For more examples of
this phenomenon and the possible connection of the new
name of Corduba with an early vicus see Rodríguez Neila
(1976, 106, 116, note 72) and also Bispham 2006, 87 for
an example of Republican date in Cales.
See Keay 1998, 63 and Apendix III for a list of Roman
coloniae and other privileged towns in Baetica.
Nat. 3.3.7; 3.3.10–12. Caesar is considered to be responsible
for the foundation of Hasta Regia, Iulia Romula Hispal,
Ituci Virtus Iulia, Claritas Iulia Ucubi, Genitiva Iulia
Urbanourm Urso and Iulia Gemella Acci. Augustus may
have been the founder of Augusta Gemella Tucci, Augusta
Firma Astigi, and Caesarina Augusta Asido. Hispalis and
Corduba are thought to have been refounded in time of
Augustus. Italica was granted the status of colonia civium
Romanorum by Hadrian.
Plin. Nat. 3.3.25.
The legal status of the earliest Republican settlement
remains unclear and it is somehow remarkable that the
only mention to the Scipio’s settlement in 206–205 BCE
is recorded in a text dated in middle of the 2nd c. CE
(Apian, Iber. 38) and not by earlier writers like Livy
(Galsterer 1997, 51). For Canto (1999, 145–82) and García
(2009, 379), the early settlement may have had the status
of colonia Latina. See against this hypothesis Caballos
1994, 30; Keay 1997, 26; Galsterer 1997, 53. Italica was
granted the status of municipium civium Romanorum some
time in the second half of the 1st century BCE, probably
between 16 and 13 BCE (Caballos 1994, 61–4) and became
a colonia Civium Romanorum under Hadrian (Aul. Gelius,
Noct. Attic. XVI, 13, 4) changing its name to Colonia Aelia
Augusta Italica.
See González Román 1991, 89, with previous bibliography,
for the problematic inscription used as evidence of the
colonial status of Iliturgi under Hadrian.
Ruiz de Arbulo 2006, 41.
Arce 2004.
Canto 1997, 274, 280; García-Bellido 2006, 256.
Melchor 2006.
Melchor 2006, 252, for the integration of the local elites
in the colonies of southern Hispania, see Padilla 2006.
Edwards and Woolf 2003, 2.
2000, 25.