BAETULO
(Badalona) Barcelona, Spain.
Town on the coast of Laietania, 10 km NE of Barcelona,
near the mouth of the Baetulo (Besos) in Tarraconensis.
The suffix -ilo, typically iberian, suggests that originally it
was a native oppidum, which has not been identified. it
grew in the 1st c. B.C. when several nearby iberian settlements were abandoned. According to Pliny (
HN 3.22) it
was an oppidum enjoying Roman rights; it is also mentioned by P. Mela (2.90) and Ptolemy (2.6.18). its prosperity in the 1st-3d c. was due to trade in local wine. The
town was reduced to ruins during the invasion of the
Franks, but was rebuilt and fortified by great walls, some
sectors of which still survive.
Excavation has uncovered Roman houses with mosaics
(now in the Barcelona Archaeological Museum) and
many inscriptions; the earliest (
CIL II, 4606-4608), include an important bronze tabula patronatus. The local
archaeological museum, in addition to Roman material,
has finds from nearby prehistoric deposits and iberian
oppida, in particular the Mas Boscá.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. de C. Serra Ráfols, “Excavaciones a
Badalona,”
Anuari de l'institut d'Estudis Catalans 8
(1927-31) 100;
Forma Conventus Tarraconensis, I.
Baetulo-Blandae (1928); “Una
tabula Hospitalis trobada a
Badalona,”
Butlletí Museus d'Art de Barcelona 4 (1934)
334; “Excavaciones en Badalona y descubrimiento de la
puerta NE de la ciudad,”
Ampurias 1 (1939) 268.
J. MALUQUER DE MOTES
