OCTAVIANUM
(Sant Cugat del Vallés) Barcelona,
Spain.
A town in Catalonia 12 km N of Barcelona whose name refers to the Monastery of Sant Cugat, at the eighth milestone of the road from Barcino
to Egara. It was on the site of the passio of Cucufas, a
martyr from Barcelona.
A fluted sarcophagus, in the monastery from the earliest times, is now in the Archaeological Museum of Barcelona.
Restoration work in the monastery revealed the existence of a late Roman necropolis with tombs preserving
the ruins of mosaic laudae in the African style, an Early
Christian meeting hall, and a building of square floor
plan with projections that may have been towers. It was
built with square stone blocks (opus quadratum), and
the walls were 2 m thick, a construction justifying the
name of castrum in the mediaeval documents. Among
the material reutilized was a milestone of Claudius. The
hall was modified in the 6th c. with a polygonal apse,
and decorated with Visigothic ornamental sculpture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bosch Gimpera & J. Serra Rlifols,
“Scavi a Sant Cugat del Vallés,”
RendPontAcc 37 (1964-65) 307-24; P. de Palol,
Arqueología cristiana de la España romana (1966) 42 s. 374.
A. BALIL
