6-26-14. Merida, Spain
Merida, the ancient Emerita Augusta, was the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. Located in far western Spain, only a few miles from the Portuguese border, the city stands well off the usual tourist itinerary. The dedicated soul willing to brave the long bus ride from Seville, however, is rewarded with the finest assemblage of Roman buildings in the country.
Within a few minutes of my arrival, I came into view of Merida’s most spectacular Roman survival, the half-mile long bridge over the Rio Guadiana. This remarkable structure, only pedestrianized twenty years ago, springs by sixty arches over a broad river valley. In the Roman era, and indeed for centuries after, it was a critical point in the war and commerce of west-central Spain; as late as 1808, two of its arches were broken to thwart Napoleon’s army of occupation.
A millennium before Napoleon, another occupying army – the Arabs – sought to control the bridge by building a massive fortress at its head. The walls of this castle, composed almost entirely of re-used blocks from the Roman city, still stand. If nothing else, its position was good; it was only from the ramparts that I was finally able to frame a picture of the entire bridge. Stripped of its buildings by centuries of invasion and pillage, the fortress’ interior is comparatively uninteresting. I was pleased to note, however, that the former cistern, a stone-vaulted chamber twenty feet underground, has been turned into a goldfish pond.
A little over a decade ago, the construction of a new municipal building near the Arab fortress uncovered a whole quarter of well-preserved Roman, Byzantine, and Arab houses. Impressed by the quality of the remains but unwilling to buy a new site, the civic government decided to simply elevate its new headquarters on pillars, which would allow excavation to continue in the site beneath. This plan was executed; and visitors can now walk Roman streets while passing windows filled with civic employees in their cubicles.
The so-called Villa of Mithras, located just outside the ancient city, was my next stop. It is famous chiefly for the quality of its mosaic decorations, and in particular for a beautifully designed and brilliantly colored depiction of the cosmos, complete with a host of allegorical figures. As luck would have it, this mosaic was under restoration at the time of my visit –which meant in effect that my attempts at appreciation were marred by the overweight technician sprawled across its center.
I next visited a church dedicated to St. Eulalia, a local girl martyred in the prosecutions of Diocletian. Although the actual circumstances of her life and death are now unclear, a pious legend confidently asserts that she was thrust into a furnace, and even points to the Roman oven preserved onsite as the place of her martyrdom.
After passing a well-preserved aqueduct – one of the two that once served Merida – and snapping a few pictures of the cranes’ nests atop its broken piers, I spent a few minutes wandering the vast and dusty confines of the Roman stadium. Feeling the warning signs of sunburn, however, I soon retreated to the shady lanes of the medieval city, where other Roman remains rise among the press of later buildings. The most impressive ruin is probably the so-called arch of Trajan, a monumental gateway more than thirty feet tall now ingloriously sandwiched between a barber shop and a clutch of cheap apartments.
The “Temple of Diana” has fared better; though converted into a noble mansion during the Renaissance, recent restorations have revealed its original shape and much of the forum that surrounded it.
The artifacts recovered from all these scattered ruins are displayed in the excellent archaeological museum. A succession of spacious and well-lit rooms leads visitors through various aspects of the life and death of Augusta Emerita, and even had a few signs in English – a pleasant novelty after a week spent wading through miles of Spanish. Highlights of the collection included a number of very fine mosaics (most notably one illustrating two local charioteers in action), a late antique consular diptych, and a beautiful head of Augustus (beautifully executed, I mean; he was not a particularly handsome man).
Finally, I visited the archaeological park containing the Roman theater and amphitheater. Having been thoroughly spoiled by Arles, Nimes, and Orange, I did not linger long in these structures, pausing to admire only the re-erected columnar façade of the theater. The modern stage equipment which littered the stage – preparation for an upcoming festival of ancient drama – rather detracted from the visual effect, as did the three vintage cars parked onstage. I don’t know whose version of Oedipus Rex they plan to stage, but I would love to know where the cars come in.
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