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Italica (Santiponce) |
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| Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jan van Vliet. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius. | ||
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Italica was founded in 206 during the Second Punic War (218-202), Rome's
war against Hannibal.
The Roman commander Publius Cornelius Scipio settled his Italian veterans
on this site, which was close enough to the Guadalquivir to control the
area. Although the nearby native city Hispalis (Seville) always remained
bigger, Italica was an important center of Roman culture. The emperor Hadrian,
who was born in Italica, gave the town the rights of a colonia.
This picture shows one of the Roman roads, carefully restored by Spanish archaeologists. |
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Bust of the emperor Hadrian (117-138) one of the great builders in
the town, although he appears not to have liked his native place: once
emperor, he made a large tour through the western provinces
-Germania Superior, Germania
Inferior, Brittannia, the Spanish parts of the empire- and even spent
some time in Seville, but he did not visit Italica, even though it was
only a few kilometers away.
This bust is now in the Museo Arqueológico of Seville. Hadrian's predecessor, the emperor Trajan (98-117), was also a native from Italica. It has been assumed that the poet Silius Italicus was also born in this town, but this is less certain. |
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A milestone along the road to Italica. The inscription Hadrianus Aug[ustus] fecit means that the emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of the road. The main products of the Italican economy, stone and olive oil, were carried to the river port along this road. The inscription is now in the Museo Arqueológico of Seville. | |
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The entrance of the amphitheater of Italica. Amphitheaters were used for gladiatorial fights. Here is a satellite photo. | |
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The stairs on the outside, which made it possible to reach the upper seats. | |
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The arena. The structures in the center included elevators, which were used to bring wild animals into the arena.. | |
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Another photo of the arena. | |
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The seats of the visitors. The amphitheater could accommodate almost 25,000 people, which suggests that Italica was a pretty large city. The Colosseum in Rome had about 60,000 seats for a population of about a million people. If the same proportion of the populace visited the amphitheater of Italica, the town counted more than 400,000 people, which is unlikely. Probably, gladiatorial fights and hunts were more popular in Andalusia than in Italy. (It is tempting to connect this with the popularity of bull fights in modern Spain.) | |
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Votive offering, found in the amphitheater. Now in the Museo Arqueológico of Seville. | |
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Livius.Org, 2003 Revision: 9 June 2007 |
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