Roman Tarraco on foot: amphitheatre to forum: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
Tarraco, Roman capital of Hispania Tarraconensis
Rome laid Tarraco out in terraces: the amphitheatre by the sea, the circus and the provincial forum on the hill, the colony's forum and theatre below. The cathedral, a noble house and the town's main square were later built on top of the Roman stones.
The stops
This Roman amphitheatre was built in the 1st or 2nd century AD, down from the walls and facing the sea. It measured 130 by 102 metres, could hold some 14,000 to 15,000 spectators, and staged gladiatorial fights and combats between beasts or men and beasts. In 259 the city's bishop, Fructuosus, and his deacons Augurius and Eulogius were burned alive in the persecution under Emperor Valerian, and once Christianity became the empire's religion, stones from the building were used for a basilica commemorating the three martyrs.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 This iron-railed lookout sits on a 23-metre cliff at the sea end of the Rambla Nova. From it you see the sea, the port, the railway station, the amphitheatre, the beach and the Punta del Miracle. Tarragona people strolling the Rambla say they are going to "touch iron" at the Balcó, and in front of it stands the monument to the Catalan navigator Roger de Llúria.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 The circus was built under Emperor Domitian (81 to 96 AD) and stayed in use until the 5th century, with room for about 20,000 people at the horse and chariot races. It was 325 metres long, and what survives is only a small part: the head of the circus and some huge barrel vaults that carried the seating, close to the city wall and the Pretori, plus a monumental entrance door. It is counted among the most notable and best preserved Roman circuses in the west of the empire.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0 Emperor Vespasian ordered this provincial forum built in the 70s AD, and it stayed in use until the 5th century. The upper level was a worship precinct, now occupied by the cathedral and other buildings, and below it lay a representation square roughly 175 by 320 metres, among the largest squares of the Roman Empire. The Plaça del Fòrum keeps important remains of that square; the open space itself was made after the Spanish Civil War, when bombing destroyed buildings that stood inside it.
Photo: Rjdeadly — CC BY-SA 4.0 This baroque gate in the city wall dates from the 18th century and carries the coat of arms of Philip V, flanked by two lions, with the arms of Tarragona beneath. The wall it opens through began as a Roman work at the end of the 3rd century BC, when Roman armies arrived in the Second Punic War, and has been repaired many times since, notably in the Middle Ages and the War of the Spanish Succession. The stretch of wall between this gate and the archaeological museum was later used for housing.
Photo: Enfo — CC BY-SA 3.0 The cathedral stands in the highest part of the city, on a site that held a Roman temple of imperial worship and a main mosque, which it replaced after the Christian reconquest. Building began in the 12th century and it was consecrated in 1331, in a style between Romanesque and Gothic. In the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre there is a 4th-century AD Roman sarcophagus with Gothic additions.
Photo: Rafa Esteve — CC BY-SA 4.0 This noble house on Carrer dels Cavallers is now the seat of the Museu d'Història de Tarragona. Its origins go back to the early 15th century; in 1542 it was adapted, together with the Ixart and Montoliu houses, as a royal residence for the stay of King Charles I, and in 1764 Carles de Castellarnau bought it as his home. Excavations in its courtyard in 1993 uncovered Roman structures: the podium of the portico of the province's great representation square.
Photo: MARIA ROSA FERRE ✿ from Vilafranca del penedes, Catalunya — CC BY-SA 2.0 The main square of the upper town fills a quarter of the arena of the old Roman circus, where the central spine stood, and its development made use of the circus's arena, vaults and podium. It takes its name from a well 47 metres deep that Archbishop Pere de Clasquerí had built in 1363, and it held a daily market until 1915. The neoclassical City Hall closes the south side, and on three feast days, including Santa Tecla on 23 September, the square becomes the stage for human towers.
Photo: Malopez 21 — CC BY-SA 4.0 Josep Maria Jujol designed this theatre in 1908, an early work with clear influences from Gaudí, with whom he had just worked on Casa Batlló. He shaped the hall as a ship carrying spectators towards the sea of salvation and put his effort into decorative details around that idea. The theatre closed in the late 1980s, the city bought it in 1991, and the restored building opened on 10 March 1995 and won the 1996 FAD architecture prize.
Photo: pere prlpz — CC BY-SA 3.0 This Roman theatre was built at the end of the 1st century BC, in the time of Augustus, as part of the monumental development of the colony's forum. The builders used the steep slope of the hill for part of the seating, much as at the amphitheatre, and it was in use until the end of the 2nd century, when it stopped being a theatre. Only the first five rows around the orchestra remain intact, with two of the three radial staircases, and the foundations of the stage are still visible, with a lookout built for viewing the ruins.
Photo: Lluis tgn — Public domain This was the forum of the Roman colony, where the city's administrative and commercial business was done. A first public square was laid out in the late 2nd century BC over the Iberian settlement of Kese, with a temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, and under Augustus a new square was added with a three-aisled basilica presided over by a statue of the emperor. The forum stayed in use until the second half of the 4th century, the date given for the end of its basilica; what survives is a porticoed square, a row of shops and, in the centre, the curia.
Photo: Enric — CC BY-SA 4.0
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