Excursion to Itálica

As I mentioned in the introduction, part of the study abroad experience is a series of excursions to different parts of Spain, as well as one to Portugal. On Friday, January 15th, we took our first such trip to Itálica, a Roman ruin just outside of Seville.

First, a bit of history. Back in the third century BC, Spain didn't exist. That is, didn't exist as a country. The Iberian Peninsula had been settled in the south by the Carthaginians, and the Romans were still trying to make headway in the north. The Carthaginian leader Hasdrubal (Hannibal's brother-in-law) tried to consolidate his Spanish holdings, so he made a treaty with Rome that he wouldn't expand north of the Ebro River if Rome didn't expand south of it.

The Ebro River, visible in the northeast portion of Spain where the purple ends, was the line Rome and Carthage agreed not to cross. Until they did.

  Well, Hasdrubal was assassinated by a slave who was upset about the crucification of a native leader, and the next-in-command, Hannibal, took charge of the Carthaginian army. Hannibal was a brilliant military tactician, and had a sworn hatred of Rome to boot. When Rome decided to make Saguntum, which was south of the Ebro, a protectorate, Hannibal had an excellent excuse to start his war on the Roman Empire. He began by taking Saguntum, which fell after an eight month war of attrition. Despite Rome's best efforts to ignore Saguntum's pleas for help, the senate finally felt obligated to do something when the city was conquered. So began the Second Punic War. Very long story short, Hannibal took an army overland to Italy, famously crossing the Alps with his war elephants to fight and win several battles, but ultimately failing to take Rome. While Hannibal was causing havoc in Italy, the Romans sent an army to the Iberian Peninsula, where they were ultimately successful in defeating the Carthaginians. Hannibal went back to Africa to defend against a Roman assault, which culminated in the Romans defeating the Carthaginians at Zama, near Carthage, thus bringing an end to the seventeen-year-long war.

The important part of this story, for our purposes, is that bit about the Romans taking over Spain while Hannibal had his hands full in Italy. The battle that secured the Iberian Peninsula for Rome happened in 206 BC, in what was known as the Battle of Ilipa.

Waaay over there. In the distance. By where that town is. That's where the Battle of Ilipa happened.

So why's that such a big deal? Well, the victory at Ilipa began what would end up being around six centuries of Roman rule over the peninsula. All of Spain's modern languages, other than Basque, are Latin-based. The Romans are also where Spain got Christianity and the basis for its legal system. The Romans had such a profound influence on Spain as to make all previous Iberian history almost obsolete.

So back to the Battle of Ilipa. It just so happens that the site of that battle is about ten miles north of Seville. After the battle, the Romans built the city of Italica just outside Ilipa as a settlement for soldiers injured in the battle. 2200 years later, the first of the Herbert line made his way there.

Italica is an incredible place. It took people until the 18th century to remember that something was there that might be worth taking a look at. They found a well-preserved Roman city, complete with a coliseum and amphitheater.

The coliseum

Walking into the coliseum is an eerie experience. To know that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were butchered on the ground beneath your feet while crowds of spectators cheered from the seats surrounding you is a bit unnerving, to say the least. And yet, it's incredibly cool to walk into ancient history. Two emperors were born here: Trajan and his successor Hadrian. Hadrian in particular wanted to make Italica a showpiece of Roman architecture, and the ruins today reflect the city as Hadrian rebuilt it in AD 125. In addition to the coliseum and amphitheater (the fourth largest in the Roman world) mentioned above, Italica boasted wide streets, rows of mansions (one with forty rooms), and public baths.

Remnants of a city block

A modern town was built on top of a good portion of these ruins. Today, Santiponce (which is often referred to as Italica) is part of the Seville metroplex.

Beautiful doors in Italica. Or Santiponce. Ah, hell. No one knows.

I think it would be pretty neat to know you're living on top of a bunch of Roman ruins. Until they find something worth excavating beneath your house. As happened in the case of the amphitheater. The story goes that an unsuspecting citizen was digging a hole to put in a garage (I don't know why one might dig a hole for a garage, but I didn't make up the story) when he found "something of intrigue". The powers that be came and had a look and promptly told everyone that they had to move. In all, nine family houses were destroyed to unearth the amphitheater. No one knew what happened to the poor old sap who just had to have that garage right there.

This is in the backyard of the house with the pretty door pictured above.

The amphitheater sat 25,000 people, even though the town only had a population of perhaps 8,000. I guess that's what happens when you've got a hometown emperor pulling for the development of your city. They still have plays here during the summer. Apparently the acoustics are fantastic.

And so concluded our first excursion. What happened to the town that caused it to go from showcase of the empire to buried under a hill for a thousand years, you ask? The Guadalquivir River used to run through Italica. When it decided to change course (which, according to Wikipedia, was probably due to siltation, a common problem in antiquity following the removal of forest cover), the town dried up-- literally. Population waned around the third century, and the Roman empire fell soon thereafter. Centuries of sediment completely buried the city, and it wasn't until 1781 that anyone started excavating it. Excavation continues to this day (the amphitheater was unearthed in the 1970's). A fantastic place. I look forward to the rest of the excursions we have scheduled, and will be sure to blog about them! (The next trip is to Cordoba, inspiration for my favorite poem, Canción de jinete, next Friday).