Colonia Clunia Sulpicia
In: Hispania Antigua. Arqueológica: 14, 2022
DOI: 10.48255/9788891327734.12
Clunia is located on the Alto de Castro (Peñalba de Castro, Burgos) on the right bank of the river Arandilla, a tributary of the Duero, at its confluence with the river Espeja. The hill is made up of a large platform covering more than 100 hectares.
In the Celtiberian period, the inhabitants of this area formed part of the Arevaque tribes and lived in small population centres located on high, easily defended places, as can be seen, among others, in the remains found in the Alto del Cuerno, opposite the plateau currently occupied by the city of Clunia, and in other nearby hills, and there is sufficient archaeological evidence to prove the presence of habitat nuclei also on the plain and next to watercourses. The natives called this territory Clounioq, which later became Clunia.
With Tiberius (14-37 AD), Clunia already had the status of a Roman municipality since, with this emperor, coins, aces and semises were minted with his effigy and the names of the citys magistrates, 7/quattuor viri and aediles//.
The location of Roman Clunia was the result of a well-thought-out decision, consistent with the Roman way of life. Situated on a sufficiently extensive hill, and with a dominant position over the territory of the indigenous //Clunians, the Roman surveyor studied the site carefully to place it on top of a large water reservoir, what we know today as Roman Cave, a karstic complex that can be exploited from the city by digging wells. In most cases they are small circular wells that only allow the use of pulleys and buckets to extract the water, while in the case of the thermal buildings, large square wells, between 2 and 4 m. on a side, were used, so that they could be extracted with the help of machines. Recent research in Cueva Román is providing important information for our knowledge which, at the same time, allows us to propose explanations for questions that have so far been incomprehensible in the development of the city.
The Clunia forensic complex, in its architectural manifestation, represents the perfection of a fusion of two models commonly adopted throughout the geography of the Roman world, as far as the definition of the commercial space is concerned. We can intuit that those who designed the Clunia forum were thinking of adouble possibility. A space that would serve for the daily use of the city and that could also serve as a place for holding fairs, markets and shows related to Clunias status as the capital of the Juridical Convent.
The installation of two large baths in a single place, with a division of circuits in the case of the larger one and with dimensions far beyond the usual, or the large capacity of the theatre, can only be justified on this hypothesis, as they do not seem to be a consequence of the needs of a municipality of the size of Clunia.
The Theatre is a monumental building of great capacity, built with an exquisite architectural design. It is located on the north-eastern edge of the Alto del Castro, thus occupying a marginal space in the urban fabric of the city.
However, despite the fact that the decision to locate the capital of the Convent in Clunia was c ertainly made on the basis of the existence of a Roman municipality, the buildings to which we have referred are a consequence of this decision and are designed in their typology and dimensions to serve a much larger population than the one that inhabits the city and that will come to it at certain times.
However, it seems, at least in the case of Clunia, that the calculations were not properly made, that the expectations were not fulfilled or simply that the populations that depended on, and therefore had to go to Clunia, did so only for administrative reasons, approaching Caesaraugusta for commercial matters, probably because it was more convenient and, why not say it, more logical and natural to move along the Ebro basin. As far as we know, from the 2nd century onwards, life in the city did not develop as planned.