CÁSTULO
(Cazlona) Jaén, Spain.
An Ibero-Roman city of Baetica in the environs of Linares, inhabited from the end of the Neolithic Age on and famous
for the nearby silver mines of Sierra Morena. It has produced fragments of Greek black-figure vases from the
end of the 6th c. B.C., red-figure vases from the first half
of the 4th c. B.C., and some kraters of the same date
from Italy. It was the largest city in Oretania (
Strab.
3.156) and closely tied to the Carthaginian party (
Livy
24.41). Nearby was the Baebelo mine, which paid Hannibal 300 pounds of silver per day (
Plin. 33.96).
Castulo played a large part in the beginning of the
Roman conquest (App.
Iberia 16;
Livy 26.19). The inscriptions on its coins were in native alphabets. It has
contributed a few good Roman portraits, one in a toga
of the Flavian period, many Hispanic sigillata and Roman gems, architectural fragments, Roman glass, and
animalistic sculpture such as Iberian and Roman lions,
all now in the Archeological Museum of Linares. Stelai
with human figures in relief are in the Archaeological
Museum of Madrid. Many inscriptions have been found
there, one of them a fragment of an olive oil law of
Hadrian. Iberian, Roman, and Visigothic necropoleis are
well documented. Castulo was surrounded by walls and
had several temples, a theater, and a circus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. D'Ors & R. Contreras, “Nuevas inscripciones romanas en Cástulo,”
ArchEspArq 29 (1956)
118-27
I; J. M. Blázquez, “Cástulo en las fuentes histórico-literarias anteriores al Imperio,”
Oretania 21 (1965) 123-28; G. Trías, “Estudio de las cerámicas áticas decoradas de la necrópolis del Molino de Caldona (Cástulo),” ibid. 10-11 (1969) 222-33
I.
J. M. BLÁZQUEZ
