Saguntum
In: Hispania Antigua. Arqueológica: 14, 2022
DOI: 10.48255/9788891327734.03
Sagunto is located at a crossroads of land and sea routes which gives it a strategic value. At this point, on the hill known as Castell, around 500 BC, the Iberian oppidum Arse was established, a toponym that appears on the first coins minted locally. On the shores of the sea, this town had a neighborhood frequented by the merchant traffic which can be identified as the main emporium of the sucronensis sinus (Mela II, 92), as it is on the coastal ridge separating the sea from the coastal freshwater lagoon and it is suitable as a maritime stopover.
The rivalry between Rome and Carthage to gain control of the Western Mediterranean put this Iberian population in the spotlight when the 226 B.C. treaty fixed the Ebro as the boundary of frequentation in arms between the two powers. Hannibal besieged the city in 219 BC and took it the following year. Before the Senate of Rome, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio maintained that this fact was a violation of the Ebro treaty, considering that the city in question had welcomed Ionian populations from Zakynthos, from whom the place name Saguntum derives, and Latin people from Ardea in remote times. Consequently, vetoed de jure for the Carthaginians, Hannibals action was the casus belli of the Second Punic War (218-202 BC), resolved in favor of Rome.
From this victory on, the city will not only be a geostrategic place, but, above all, a setting of Roman hegemony and, as such, it will be cited by the main authors of its History, starting with Polybius. This protagonism attracted European travellers and scholars in search of the landscapes of Hannibals war and the monuments of a city distinguished for its fidelity. Indeed, Saguntum has numismatic collections which denote the exceptional nature of its Iberian and Roman mint, as well as an important corpus of Latin inscriptions. Also important are the archaeological excavations of the elevated area of the Castell, with the town forum, the Roman theatre and the Grau Vell emporium, sectors which have coordinated developments that bring them together as a socio-political entity.
Of special interest is the urbanization of the eastern peak of the Castell at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. It shows a public space presided over by a tetrastyle temple, indicative of a complementary settlement to the Iberian one, probably of publicani. In this context, coins are issued with the toponyms Saguntum, in Latin, on the obverse, and Arse, in Iberian, on the reverse. Small bronze statues with the representation of Hercules, Bacchus and Venus, reinforce the Latin rituality of a population fifty years after the Punic War. The Roman citizens municipality forum, from the Middle-Augustian period, maintains the old temple as the guiding sign of a population that is projected towards the northern slope, signified by the theater, and descends towards the plain, presided over by the Roman circus, next to the river Udiva.
The port area renews its buildings from the same date. A tower on the mainland marks its location, while a dam juts out into the sea to improve the mooring of ships. The emporium is equipped with new warehouses and navalia to dry out a small number of boats. In Saguntum, however, there are no administrative charges related to port management, nor is there any documentation of its own fleet. What is proven is the production of wine and amphorae which is incorporated into the Roman distribution circuit, for the benefit of the Saguntine landowners.
It is a town that stood out for its productivity and participation in maritime trade. Rome distinguished it by granting it the only existing Collegium Saliorum outside of Italy. This is the line of Saguntine dignity whose leaders barely crossed the local level, as shown by their cursus honorum. .