UCUBI
or Ucubis (Espejo) Cordoba, Spain.
To the SE of Cordoba, W of Castro del Rio. A colony
exempt from the jurisdiction of the Conventus Iuridicus
Astigitanus, known as Claritas Julia according to Pliny
(
NH 3.12), and mentioned by Sallust (1.123) in a passage that must refer to the entry of Sertorius into Baetica
after having defeated Metelus in Lusitania in 79-78 B.C.
The cache of 700 Roman denarii found near Ucubi must
have been hidden on that occasion.
Bellum Hispaniense
contains several references to Ucubi during the struggle
between Caesar and the sons of Pompey in 45-44 B.C.
Pompey camped between Ategua and Ucubi when besieged by Caesar; the latter finally occupied the site, but not until Pompey had ordered the execution of all those he suspected of being Caesar's partisans (
Bell.Hisp. 20.1; 24.2).
Remains apparently from that period include the amphitheater N of the town, partly hewn out of a hillside. Only the walls of the substructure remain, but the diameter of the arena must have been ca. 35 m. There is a
Roman bridge nearby. Inscriptions and the remains of
houses and fortifications have been found in Ategua vetus
and Ucubi, and ceramic fragments in Ategua which date
from the 1st c. B.C. and even earlier. The town is reputed
to have been the birthplace of Annius Verus, grandfather
of Marcus Aurelius, and this accounts for the alleged
Cordovan origin of the emperor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. García y Bellido, “Colonias romanas
de Hispania,”
Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español
29 (1959) 464f.
C. FERNANDEZ-CHICARRO
