GERUNDA
(Gerona) Gerona, Spain.
Town
in the province of Tarraconensis at the confluence of the
Ter and the Onyar. Chief town of the Gerundenses who,
according to Pliny (
HN 3.23), had Latin rights. It was
an oppidum of the Ausetani who controlled the defile of
the Ter which separated them from the Indiketes and
from Emporion's area of influence. Stretches of the pre-Roman cyclopean wall, which was strengthened during
the Republican era, still survive; the wall of the Imperial age, rebuilt on the same perimeter, dates from the
end of the 3d c. The town is on the main Roman road
from Tarraco to Narbo and is mentioned in ancient
sources (
Ant.It. 390; Ptol. 2.6.9). Like all of Tarraconensis it was invaded by the Franks but, thanks to its fortifications, it subsequently acquired greater importance under the Late Empire (
Rav. Cosm. 307.4; 341.13).
From an early time it had a large Christian community
and was a bishopric (Martyr. Felix peristeph. 4.29). The
Church of San Felix contains pagan and Christian sarcophagi. Roman villas outside the town have yielded the
mosaic of Ball-lloch and others, now in the Barcelona
and Gerona museums; the mosaic of Sarria de Ter is
now being excavated. A local museum is being built,
which contains prehistoric, Iberian, and Greek materials
from Rosas and Ampurias, in addition to Roman remains.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Comision de Monumentos de Gerona,
El mosaico romano descubierto en la Torre de Ball-loch
(1876); J. Martorell y Peña,
Recintos fortificados
(1881); E. Bonnet, “Les sarcophages chrétiens de l'église
Saint Felix de Géronne et l'Ecole Arlésienne de sculpture
funéraire,”
BAC (1911); J. Puig i Cadafalch,
L'Arquitectura romana a Catalunya (1934)
I.
J. MALUQUER DE MOTES
