MENTESA ORETANORUM
(Villanueva de la Fuente）
Ciudad Real, Spain.
Site near Valdepeñas. Livy
(
36.17.41) calls the town Mentissa: it was a tributary
city of the Oretani belonging to the Conventus Carthaginiensis (Ptol. 2.6.59). It is also mentioned in the
Antonine Itinerary (445.4), and was 24 Roman miles from Libisosa and 83 from Castulo according to the vases of
Vicarello. Some inscriptions have been found there, a few
of which mention a libertus Augusti, M. Ulpius, who
fulfilled the functions of tabularius vigesimae hereditatium and was also tabularius of the provinces of Lugudunensis, Aquitania, and Lusitania (
CIL II, 3235). Another inscription mentions a P. Licinius, prefect of the
Cohors VII Equitata and tribunus militum of the Legio XXII Primigenia.
It is not identical with the Mentesa of the Bastetani (
Plin. 3.25).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CIL II, pp. 434-35.
J. M. BLÁZQUEZ
