Reviews
Temples and Towns in Roman Iberia
William E. Mierse
(Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1999) 346 pp., $65.00
“After Italy I would judge Spain next,” wrote Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.) in praise of the western province: “Spain rich in fruit, oil, wine, horses, and metals of every kind.”
Occupied by the Romans in 205 B.C. after the war with Hannibal, Spain became the empire’s most romanized and latinized province. Romanization of the Iberian peninsula began when veterans of Rome’s many wars in Spain remained behind or were purposely settled there in newly organized cities, to be joined over the years by other colonists from Italy as well as native inhabitants.
Until the 17th century Spanish scholars and antiquarians paid little attention to the Roman ruins in their midst. Excavation of Roman archaeological sites, mostly by enthusiasts searching for museum pieces, did not begin until the end of the 19th century, and systematic field work by professional Spanish archaeologists did not get seriously underway until after the Spanish Civil War.
The title of William Mierse’s book, Temples and Towns in Roman Iberia, is somewhat misleading. It deals specifically with temples and their settings, not with towns, town planning or other major monuments. Mierse surveys the history of temple architecture in Spain from its tentative beginnings in the late Republic through the reign of Hadrian (117–138 A.D.). Thereafter construction of new temples ceased as the economy of Spain went into gradual decline.
In Mierse’s view, the inhabitants of Roman-Iberian cities often took deliberate steps to maintain a symbolic connection to the republic/empire. His survey begins with the so-called Republican temple in Italica, which probably dates to the second century B.C. With its three rooms, or cellas, it resembles on a modest scale a Roman Capitolium temple—and it is Mierse’s view that the temple represents a local initiative to introduce Italic sanctuary forms. Such deliberate romanization is also apparent in the forum temple and the Temple of Serapis at Emporiae: Dating to the first century B.C., these structures drew their inspiration from the Temple of Venus Genetrix in Rome and the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.
Under Augustus Rome founded new cities at Augusta Emerita (Merida), Barcino (Barcelona) and Conimbriga in modern Portugal, all of which were laid out in a rectangular grid plan, perhaps by military engineers. At Augusta Emerita and Barcino, the city temples were colonnaded on all sides like Greek temples and set, Roman-fashion, on a high podium.
The emperor Tiberius continued the Augustan building program. He authorized the construction of a temple to the divine Augustus in Tarraco (Tarragona), which may have rested on the highest terrace in the city, where the Cathedral now stands. Mierse argues, based on numismatic evidence, that a second temple was also added to Tarraco’s forum. Under Tiberius, the people of Bilbilis, birthplace of the poet Martial (c. 40–104 A.D.), constructed a theater and a temple sanctuary—modeled, according to Mierse, after the theater and sanctuary of Athena at Pergamum in Asia Minor.
Under the Flavian emperors at the end of the first century, Tarraco underwent a major restructuring. On the citadel overlooking the city stood the Temple of the Divine Augustus. A new expansive forum honoring distinguished provincial magistrates was laid out beneath it. In the city itself, at a still lower level, a new circus was constructed. Outside the city, near the sea, a magnificent amphitheater was built.
Also toward the end of the first century, in the small mining town of Munigua, near Seville, a temple sanctuary was built, modeled on either the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste or the Sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli in Italy. At the same time, a new temple modeled on the Maison Carrée at
Hadrian’s most significant architectural contribution to Spain was the addition of a new residential district to his birthplace, Italica. The centerpiece of the nova urbis was a grandiose sanctuary dedicated to Trajan (98–117 A.D.), whose reign immediately preceded Hadrian’s and who was also from Italica.
Temples and Towns is hard sledding. It is loaded with unexplained technical terminology, 1,213 footnotes and art-critical jargon. More disappointing is the book’s silence about important archaeological work accomplished in Spain in the 1990s. The book’s chief—and by no means trivial—contribution is to make available in English the work of Spanish archaeologists, which has received only a limited circulation abroad and none at all in this country.
In a brief conclusion, Mierse asks if his study has “any real significance” or raises “any larger issues.” The answer to these questions, I regret to say, is probably not.