TROIA
(“Caetobriga”) Alentejo, Portugal.
The site of a large Roman town on the Troia peninsula
on the left bank of the Sado river. It was settled at least
by the 1st c. A.D. Ptolemy (2.5) mentions a city of Caetobrix S of Tejo, and the
Antonine Itinerary cites a Catobriga in the same region. Some house facades, well aligned, were visible on the surface during the 19th c.
in a region of Troia known as Rua da Princesa. At least two of these houses had two stories, and there were mosaics on the floors of the upper rooms facing on the main road. In one of the houses was found a hoard of
bronze coins of the late Empire. A bath was also excavated; tanks for preparing garum were found along the river; and at the end of the 19th c. an Early Christian church was discovered and a round structure, perhaps a
baptistery. One of the cemeteries of the city, Aldeira,
contained over a hundred graves with rich grave goods.
The finds are in the National Museum of Archaeology
in Lisbon.
There is some speculation that the site of Caetobriga
lies in Setúbal, 32 km SE of Lisbon. The name seems to
derive from Caetobriga. In the area occupied by the
modern city the S. Sebastião hill could correspond to
ancient Caetobriga. The Roman finds in Setúbal, although numerous, do not prove, however, that there was anything more than a small village there, like the many others that existed on the right bank of the mouth of the
Sado.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marques da Costa, “Estudos sobre algumas estacões da época luso-romana nos arredores de
Setúbal,” O Archeólogo Português 29 (1930-31) 2-31
I; F. Castelo-Branco, “Aspectos e problemas arqueológicos de Troia de Setúbal,”
Occidente 65 (1963) 21f; F. de Almeida & J. L. Matos, “Frescos da ‘capela visigótica’ de Troia, Setúbal,”
Actas do II Congresso Nacional de Arqueológia, Coimbra (1971) 529-33
I.
J. ALARCÃO
