One of our main trips was to Andalucía, the name used for the southern portion of Spain. “Andalucía” is from the Arabic word “Al-Andalus,” which is what the Moors and Arabs called the kingdom they made on the Iberian peninsula after they conquered the Visigoths in 711 (and thereafter). Our bus left Alcalá de Henares at 8:00 am and we headed southwest with Seville our ultimate destination that night.
Before the Moors and the Visigoths, the Romans had conquered the Iberian peninsula, and it was to see Roman ruins that we made a planned stop in the city of Mérida. Roman legions first came to Spain in 218 BC during the Second Punic War (after Hannibal, the Carthaginian general had invaded Italy via Spain). Little by little Rome conquered Iberia (which Romans called Hispania, the forerunner of its modern name of Spain), but it took more than 200 bloody years for the Romans to pacify the various peoples of the peninsula. In the process, Spain became the most Romanized part of the empire outside of Italy, and thus Spain boasts some of the best Roman ruins anywhere. Indeed, we have seen Roman ruins all across the country: a Roman bridge and ruined aqueducts in Toledo; the amazing aqueduct in Segovia (see photo below), that until a century or so ago still brought water into the city from mountains miles away; the triumphal arch in Mendinaceli, and more. Spain produced some Romans of note. Three Roman emperors were born in there: Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius. Seneca the younger was also born in Córdoba (more on that city later), and some even say that Pontius Pilate was born in the eastern city of Tarragona along the Mediterranean coast. Of course in today’s popular culture, the most famous Roman Spaniard is general Maximus of Gladiator fame (the edited version, of course).
Back to Mérida, it was an important city along the trade routes connecting the southern port of Cádiz with northern cities such as Zaragoza (from the original Roman name Caesar Augustus) and Mediterranean ports. We pulled into Mérida just before 2:00 pm, which is siesta time. In many cities and towns of Spain, that means everything shuts down, including museums, for anywhere between 2-4 hours. The bus dropped us off outside the city center and we crossed a very long Roman bridge that, until a few years ago, handled automobile traffic but was then converted into a pedestrian way. I heard many stories about how Roman bridges throughout Spain were, until very recently, able to handle automobiles better than much newer bridges. Just over the bridge we began coming across ruins throughout the city. Below is one of a Roman temple (photo courtesy of Brock Weaver, one of our students).
We did have time to rush through the Roman museum before it closed and saw some wonderful pieces.
At four-o-clock we entered the ruins of the Roman Theater and Amphitheater (very bottom). As we walked through them we could imagine the gladiators fighting in the amphitheater 2000 years ago. It was also intruiguing to contemplate that 2000 years ago in the theater we were in, the Romans enjoyed watching some of the same plays we like reading and watching, like Oedipus Rex (Latin versions of Greek plays were popular among Romans) or some Roman drama, perhaps written by Seneca the younger. Early Roman theaters were temporary structures that would be put up for a performance, then taken down. But starting about 50 BC, Romans began erecting permanent theaters like the one in Mérida. The students and all of us loved it, and many poses were struck and photos taken. I finally found a suitable backdrop for photographing Kathy: alongside Roman gods and goddesses and classic columns of the theater.
