The first traces of the oldest Roman Corduba: probable republican baths found

A new study considers that what was found under the Royal Academy building on Ambrosio de Morales street could be a public or private bathing place.


Recreation of Roman legions on the Bridge of Cordoba, with the Calahorra in the background.

Several meters underground lies the original Roman Corduba, which was founded by Claudius Marcellus in the second century BC, 750 meters away from Corduba turdetana. The Republican Corduba was originally a military camp that gradually became a full-fledged city. There are hardly any traces of that ancient camp. Of Republican Corduba, very few. In the middle of the first century B.C. Corduba lived a period of splendor, but after taking sides with the sons of Pompey during the Roman Civil War, Julius Caesar razed the city to the ground. And after that, it re-emerged as Colonia Patricia, capital of Baetica and one of the most prosperous Roman cities of the empire. Everything was done on the republican Corduba, of which hardly anything has remained.

Manuel Ruiz Bueno, professor at the University of Cordoba, and Manuel Rubio Valverde, archaeologist, have just published a study in the journal Antiquitas de Priego de Córdoba in which they have analyzed ancient excavations and have provided new data to learn more about those foundational decades of Cordoba, in which it went from being a military camp to integrate within its walls to a part of the indigenous population of Corduba turdetana, which had been settled for centuries on the Hill of the Burned (now Cruz Conde Park), which they eventually abandoned. One of the authors has worked on the preventive excavation that was carried out in the huge building at 19 Claudio Marcelo Street (the current Aldi), where the construction of a freight elevator forced to go deeper into an area that had already been razed in the twenties of the twentieth century ... but on which something remained.

In addition, in the study, these professionals have reanalyzed the results of some excavations. The most interesting is that of Ambrosio de Morales Street number 9, headquarters of the Royal Academy of Cordoba, which has been closed for years due to its poor state of conservation. In its foundations was excavated 15 years ago "a powerful wall (40 centimeters wide by four meters long) with masonry plinth and ashlars to which a brick structure of semicircular plan (which could have been completely circular) and interpreted as the base of a possible boiler". "It would be a thermal property (we do not know if public, semi-public or private) located a few meters from the eastern wall and dated to the Republican period (first century BC) before the stratigraphic relationships and its early date of amortization, straddling the late first century BC and early first century AD".

From adobe to marble

That is, we would be looking at the remains of the first known baths in the city of Cordoba, in the Republican era, before the arrival of Julius Caesar or the enormous wealth from the mines of Sierra Morena that turned a municipality built in adobe into a marble one. And in the city such ancient remains are scarce for an obvious reason: the whole city was rebuilt, but not only.

The researchers, in their report, point out that "throughout the first hundred years of the life of Republican Corduba, the city was immersed in a period of growth and prosperity interrupted briefly by certain episodes. Worthy of mention are the arrival of the warlike Lusitanians to the walls (145-141 BC), or the effects of an earthquake that caused the death of about 300 Cordovans (76 BC). More traumatic were the effects of the civil war that broke out in Rome in 49 BC because the strong support of Cordoba to the Pompeian cause meant the Caesarian assault on the city, with its consequent partial destruction and the death of about 22,000 civilians and military" Cordovans.

The first thing the Romans did when they created cities was to fortify them with practically impassable walls. Before that, geographers and engineers would draw a perimeter (Cordoba's contained within it an extension of 48 hectares) and lay out the streets. Roman streets were not laid out randomly, but were laid out in a perfect grid that was divided, in turn, between two roads: the cardo and the decumanus. The cardo and decumanus intersected in the center, in the forum around which the life of the city revolved, and were oriented towards the sunrise and sunset. The mark of those walls is still quite perceptible and noticeable in today's city, except to the south. Alfaros Street is a perfect trace of that wall, the remains of which can also be seen in Ronda de los Tejares. To this day, "it is still not possible to determine with precision the route of the southern part of the republican wall," the authors maintain.

But they have insisted on a study next to the current Puerta de Almodóvar. "Thanks to a survey carried out next to the current wall it was possible to document its three lower rows (based on large ashlars arranged in ropes) to which several strata were delivered whose materials allow dating the construction of the base of the wall at this point, from at least the middle of the first century BC," according to the study of Ruiz Lara in 2004. Given this chronology, the possibility has been raised that its construction is related to the "adaptation of the city to resist the onslaught of Caesar's troops after the battle of Munda, just on the southernmost flank. This series of works, somewhat provisional and motivated by a political instability as clear as the Civil Wars, would have forced the city to build some kind of structure that would serve for its defense in an area as delicate as the esplanade located between the wall and the river, and even more so in this southwestern end between the old road of Almodovar and the wall".

Meanwhile, one of the authors has worked on an archaeological intervention in Alfaros street 33. Inside the house some traces of the republican wall have been discovered, but very reconstructed by works of four centuries ago in the convent of the Cistercian monastery. But at this point it has been detected "another fact of great interest": "the detection of the start of one of the towers that marked this canvas. The preserved section is tiny (forty centimeters x 2.60 m, with a total of six courses), not even allowing to discern its plan," they argue.

As for the streets, in Republican Cordoba it is suspected that many were dirt and that there were hardly any sewers. They took advantage of the slope to let the rainwater run... and the waste. It was not until the imperial era, until the Patricia Colony, when Corduba enjoyed an enviable sewage system. These archaeologists, however, have detected the presence of part of an important street under the present Aldi of Claudius Marcellus. The peculiarity of the road found is that it runs through the middle of one of the insulae laid out (the blocks) during the creation of the Roman city.

Where is the southern wall?

Despite the latest research, the authors recognize that "the information available on the Republican Corduba is not too far from what was available less than two decades ago. The latest archaeological interventions have allowed us to improve our level of information on different areas (eastern wall, domestic architecture or liquid waste disposal pipes), correct previous chronologies (such as the residential establishment of Ramírez de las Casas-Deza street) and, especially, identify dynamics that were assumed, but for which there was no archaeological evidence to date (the existence of suburban domestic structures or the discovery of the first thermal establishment of the Republican period)".

But new questions have arisen: how did the sector located to the southwest of the Republican city evolve, including the wall and several domestic structures, or why did some streets cross the blocks? Nor is it known what the Roman camp was like before the foundation of the Republican city, where exactly the southern wall ran (it was later extended to the same bank of the Guadalquivir, but in Republican times it was much higher) or to find remains of the siege of Julius Caesar.

The Roman Corduba "requires a monographic and exhaustive analysis that includes an in-depth review of the growing archaeological evidence available to date (as has been done for later phases) and which we hope will continue to increase in the coming years," the authors conclude.

https://cordopolis.eldiario.es/cordo...bqzdClOIpNVxuo



And some people still wonder why we Andalusians are Andalusians and do not consider ourselves Castilians.