The Urbanism in the Roman Cordoba in Spain
Urbanism
The first they built was a solid wall of three meters thickness, composed by the
Opus Quadratum made in stones. Along this wall Squared and round towers were built. This composed 42 hectares of walls.
Inside the walls the house were very simple in the II Century B.C., built with poor materials. The walls were usually made of masonry and boulders locked with mud and adobe tapial elevations. The soils are very poor as stone or, in the worst case of rammed earth. For that reason, the original city was largely a defensive one with no internal fabric defined.
Even though in the second century b.C. the walls are covered with opus signinum and painted stucco. The water supply was carried out through the excavation of wells, building of pools which recollected the raining water. In this period there were very rich houses and a forum used as court, in which the governors offered justice.
With Augustus, and the institution of the city as Colonia Patricia, it begins in a period of reconstruction. When the era changed, during the principality of the Emperor Augustus, a series of renovations were undertook, then we can speak of a new Corduba. In the second half of the II Century the city is built
on republic structures following an organized plan.
On one side the walls are widened till 78 hectares. The enlargment of the Pomerium of the walls (in latin: past the wall) coincides with the building of the bridge and the river harbour. Inside the walls the houses are divided into insulae, sections, divided by wide streets. The meeting point of the main streets is called: Cardo Maximus and Decumanum Maximus. The Colonial Forum was set, around the present Saint Michael Church. On the other hand, increased
population resulting from this urban extension, required a significant amount of water and an aqueduct was built, called Aqva Avgvsta o Aqueduct of Valdepuentes; and the proliferation of public fountains. At the end of the Augustus period the building of a Theatre is started, exploiting a natural drop in the southeast of the walled enclosure.
Along the decades the city enlarges a lot, consistent with the role of provincial capital, and it reaches the parts beyond the walls, these sections were called vici. Outside the walls a Circus was built, next to the Via Augusta and the Amphitheatre, recently excavated in part on the land occupied by the Rectorate, and we can not provide data. Similarly, the main exit routes from the city arose
burial, some of them, such as western and northern, are very big and have left testimonies (Mausoleums of Galician Door, the Monumental Tombs of Seville Door and La Bodega Street and Hypogeum of the Deputation), of the level reached in the cordoban funerary architecture.
During this period two monumental squares were built: the first kept the Temple of Claudius Marcellus Street, the second one, built in that Flavian period, was built next the streets Jesús María and Ángel María de Saavedra. All this
provoked a greater demand of water, resolved with the construction of a second aqueduct, the Aqva Nova Domitiana Avgvsta, during the rule of Domitian. Similarly, the capital acquired an important hub of communications, leaving it remains as the Roman Bridge Creek Pedroche.
In the III Century the total decadence began: the buildings were burgled, the city stopped growing and the water became unhealthy, and burial inside the walls. Only slowed by construction, outside the city, the Palace of the Emperor Maximian, and the role of the city by Osio.
Text: Fran Peña.
Traslated by Sara Moretti
Art, Culture and Tourism in Cordoba