ASTURICA-AUGUSTA
(Astorga) León, Spain.
Roman city and mining and communications center
47 km SW of León (
Antonine Itinerary 422-23, 425, 427,
429, 431, 439, 448, 453). It belonged to the tribe of the
Astures and was capital of the conventus; it was also
inhabited in pre-Roman times. Pliny (
3.28) calls it a
great city. It was a bishopric as early as the middle of the
3d c., and its bishops are quoted in the Spanish councils
from the 4th c. on.
Its mediaeval walls are built over Roman ones of the
Late Empire, with towers and gates. The city was rebuilt
by Augustus, using the soldiers of the Legio X Gemina,
stationed there in the 1st c. The ergastula and an extensive network of sewers are preserved. Several Roman
sculptures of the 1st c. have been found, sarcophagi without reliefs, and one urban house of several rooms with
Pompeian paintings and many inscriptions, some in
Greek, besides those mentioning mine administration personnel. The inscriptions are dedicated to Roman deities
such as Jupiter, Juno, Regina, Minerva, Fortuna, Salus,
Ceteri dei inmortales y Ceteri dei deasque; oriental deities: Serapis, Isis, Tyche, Nemesis, and Kore; and occidental deities: Apollo, Grannus, and Mars Sagatus,
dating from the Antonine and Severan periods. The inscriptions also refer to a grammarian (
CIL II, 5079) and
to flamines of the conventus in the temple of Augustus
in Tarraco in the provincial concilium (
CIL II, 2637,
4223, 5124).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. M. Luengo, “Astorga (Léon). Exploraciones de las cloacas romanas,”
Noticiario Arqueológico Hispánico 2 (1953) 143-52
I; id., “Astorga romana,” ibid. 5 (1962) 152-77
I; A. García y Bellido,
“Lápidas votivas a deidades exóticas halladas recientemente en Astorga y León,”
Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia 163 (1968) 191-209
I.
J. M. BLÁZQUEZ