Liberalitas Iulia Ebora

Abstract

The city of Évora (Portugal) presents a remarkable set of testimonies of its Roman memory. In several moments of its past, the memory of a mythical Ebora Colonia Romana was the emblem of a grandeur, which in reality did not exist: the legal and administrative status of the city was only that of a medium-sized town. Liberalitas Iulia Ebora, left however an ongoing identity: even today, the temple crowning the acropolis is one of the most relevant architectural testimonies from the Roman period in the Portuguese territory, adding to the classification as a museum-city recognised as World Heritage by UNESCO since 1986. However, the past that hides beneath its streets still has too many questions to be answered. Évora has registered a remarkable dispersion of archaeological interventions, thus being the result of the contingencies in a continuously occupied city, in whose historical centre it is complex to carry out excavations. There is a great dispersion of agents and work logics, to which must be added a very reduced publication of findings. As a result, the information is dispersed and it is difficult to gather data and achieve a coherent reading. An example of the existing gaps can be found in public spaces. In fact, it was only possible to carry out a large- scale intervention on the esplanade in front of the Roman temple. The intervention conducted by Theodor Hauschild1 since 1987 was complemented with new interventions during the Museum’s remodelling, allowing us to perceive the ample dimensions of the forum square, much larger than at present one. However, other public buildings are not at all known. The theatre could be located to the east of the temple, judging by an inflection in the layout of the wall, but the proposal made for the amphitheatre, to the south of the cathedral, seems contradicted by recent archaeological excavations, in which a laconicum belonging, perhaps, to a private building, was identified. Thus, the only public building safely located corresponds to the space of the thermal baths. In the house of the Town Hall the shape of a room preserved the memory of the laconicum. A later intervention, in the exterior, brought the possibility of identifying the wall of a natatio and other indications for the reconstruction of the dimensions of the complex2. This was located near one of the main entrance roads to the urbs, still marked today by the arch of D. Isabel. A section of the possible decumanus maximus was identified to the south of the thermal building, in rua Vasco da Gama. To the south-east of this area, in rua de Burgos, a domus was located, with seven rooms, four of which had walls covered with mural paintings. One of the most relevant aspects of the built area is the fact that it was sacrificed for the construction of the IIIrd century wall, which overlaps the private house. Other domestic spaces may have been identified outside the urban perimeter, although the results of small archaeological excavations are not conclusive. What was identified was a small area of necropolis situated next to the eastern exit road of the urbs. The excavation recovered 11 cremation funerary structures and one inhumation structure. Sculptural elements and epigraphic findings suggest the presence of more funerary spaces outside the urbs, but archaeological interventions have not, for the moment, confirmed these possibilities.