![]() The price of the train runs between about 30 Euros and 45 Euros depending on which departure is chosen. ![]() There several trains that leave daily, and the trip takes between about 4.5 and 8.5 hours, though the most common length is about 5 hours. I was headed to Mérida from Madrid and took a train out of Atocha station. Getting There: Mérida is not exactly centrally located, and it’s not much of a draw other than the archaeological remains, but it is reasonably well-connected despite these things. ![]() Amphitheater of Augusta Emerita in the evening. The city seems to have remained at least regionally important through to the Visigoth conquest, and was then subsequently of some importance in the Visigoth period of occupation and beyond. It was certainly an important commercial and administrative hub in both the region and the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. Statue of Venus from the mithraeum, in the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano.Īugusta Emerita, also referred to as Emerita Augusta or just Emerita, doesn’t seem to play much of a historical role after its founding. Domitian apparently added additional territory to the city during his reign. During the Flavian Dynasty, veterans from Legio VIII Gemina were settled at Augusta Emerita. In 69 CE, Otho sent additional settlers to Augusta Emerita, probably veterans of Legio VI Victrix, in order to shore up support there as he sought the imperial seat. The amount of land granted to the colony was so large, that even after settling the initial complement of veterans, and some indigenous people, a further two assignments of settlers were needed to fill the vacant land, and even then there was surplus land that was still unoccupied. The territory of Augustus Emeritus was apparently quite large, perhaps as large as 20,000 square kilometers. By the time of Claudius, Lusitanian was further divided into three judicial and administrative areas called conventus, with Augustus Emerita being the seat of the Conventus Emeritensis. ![]() Possibly by 22 BCE, but no later than 16 BCE, Augusta Emerita became the capitol city of the province of Lusitania, which had been created by Augustus just a few years previous. Bridge over the Flumen Anas (Guadiana River). Augusta Emerita was founded as a colonia iuris Italicum, a provincial colony governed by the same Italic rights as a colony in Italy. Finds in the area indicate that there may have been a pre-Roman settlement in the vicinity of Augusta Emerita, but it is not attested in the historical record and there have been no pre-Roman architectural remains found to conclusively place a settlement at that location. The name of the new colony, Augusta Emerita, is a direct reflection of its function a settlement for veteran soldiers ( emeriti) under Augustus. Though the veterans had been fighting in the far north of the peninsula, they were to be settled over 400 kilometers away, in the southwest of the peninsula. With the Cantabarian Wars seemingly over, in 25 BCE Carisus was appointed as a deductor by Augustus, tasked with setting up a colony for veterans of Legio V Alaudae and Legio X Gemina, who had been fighting in the war. While that turned out not to be the case, it precipitated the founding of Colonia Julia Augusta Emerita. The capture of the Asturian fortress of Lancia in 25 BCE brought the conflict to, what was thought at the time to be, an ending. In 26 BCE, Augustus himself traveled to Hispania to personally lead the campaign, but shortly thereafter an illness forced him to leave the campaign in the hands of his legates Gaius Antistius Vetus and Publius Carisius while he recovered in Tarraco. The Cantabrian Wars lasted from 29 BCE to 19 BCE and were fought against the Cantabri, Astures, and Gallaeci peoples. In 29 BCE, the Romans began a series of actions in northern Hispania intended to finally bring the whole of the peninsula under Roman control, a task that the Romans had been taking on for the better part of the previous two centuries. Theater of Augusta Emerita in the evening.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |