Gades
In: Hispania Antigua. Arqueológica: 14, 2022
DOI: 10.48255/9788891327734.16
Gades, the ancient Phoenician city of Gadir, is one of the most important urban settlements in the western Mediterranean, being widely cited in literary sources for its commercial, fishing and mythical importance. Much information is known about its ancient history, especially from the glorious era of the Cadiz family of the Cornelii Balbi, closely linked to the Rome of Caesar and Augustus. However, the known archaeological evidence does not do justice to its glorious past, praised since the 16th and 17th centuries, due to the fact that it is a city with a well-preserved modern historical center that makes archaeological work difficult.
It is necessary to know the Maritime Cultural Landscape of the old city to be able to interpret it properly, which presents two singularities. The first is that the Gadir/Gades port system integrated not only the city but also the entire surrounding bay, a geographical concept that needs to be evaluated in a joint manner. The second is insularity: Gades was in ancient times an archipelago, currently welded, continentalized and highly transformed, originally made up of three islands: Erytheia, the smaller island, currently merged with the northern end of the long island or Cotinussa (zone of the city centre of modern Cadiz). And Antipolis, on the coast, coinciding with the current town of San Fernando. Geoarchaeological works carried out twenty years ago, and recently continued in the surroundings of the Valcárcel Building by the University of Cádiz have verified that between the two islands there was an inter-island channel or strait, which was open during the Phoenician, Punic and Roman times, generating an insular environment on which the city developed.
It is difficult to define the boundaries of the ager or dependent territory of Gades, adjacent to those of Hasta Regia and Asido Caesarina, coinciding, at least, with the entire Bay of Cádiz. Divided into plots since the Augustan era, saliculture farms flourished there, with low archaeological visibility; along with almost a hundred figlinae for the production of garum amphorae, and coastal villae. Two engineering works possibly part of the same building program from the Augustan period stand out in the hinterland: the imposing aqueduct, with some 80 km of layout, equipped with various construction systems between its fountains in El Tempul (Jerez) and the castellum aquae at the entrance of Cadiz (“Puerta de TierraŽ area); and the well known via Augusta (A Gades Romam), whose detailed archaeological layout is poorly known.
The city was surrounded by two suburbs, well-defined archaeologically today. The eastern one, along which one of the best-preserved and best-known high-imperial necropolises in Roman Hispania; and the western one, coinciding with the smaller island or Erytheia, of an eminently artisanal nature, equipped with salting factories, installations for the production of marine purple, and pottery. In it, the recent discovery of the so-called Halieutic Testaccio of Gades stands out: a landfill specialized in the recycling of some specific sordes urbis (amphorae and remains of the fishing-canning industry) active between Caesar and Nero, of enormous dimensions (estimatedsize between 25-30 m high with between half and a little more than one hectare of surface), with many similarities with the well-known Mons at Rome from which it takes its name. In both suburbs, agricultural exploitation centers (villae) have also been identified.
Gades developed from 206 BC, moments in which the Phoenician-Punic civic community signed a pact with Rome during the conquest process. From 49 BC it became a municipium, and a new city was built that coexisted with the previous one, ordered by the Cadiz family of the Cornelii Balbi, known as Neapolis according to the Strabonian geography. It presents multiple influences from its Semitic past, especially perceptible in its monetary workshop, which issued coins with legends in neo-Punic until the 1st century BC. The port city, very cosmopolitan, maintained a great importance thanks to foreign trade and navigation until the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd century AD, dates from which it lost importance in favor of other enclaves (especially Asido, later episcopal seat).
Recent synthesis studies have improved the knowledge of its topography and urban planning. So far no remains of the urban wall have been discovered, possibly masked behind the imposing defenses of modern times. As proposed in local historiography (16th-17th centuries), it is likely that there was an amphitheater at the entrance to the city, not yet verified archaeologically (the so-called «Huerta del Hoyo» in the “Puerta de TierraŽ area). The most outstanding building, identified in 1980 and currently musealized, is the Theatrum Balbi, built at the end of the 1st century BC and of great size, with an architectural program endowed with marbles imported from the main quarries of the Empire. It has some relevant inscriptions, in addition to being cited in classical sources, and has been studied monographically. A recent proposal has been made for the location of the forum in the Plaza dela Merced area, where buildings related to possible commercial structures have appeared. Remains of several houses (domus) have also been identified in the Barrio de Santa María, in rescue archaeological operations. References are known in the classical sources to various sanctuaries, among which the one of Hercules Gaditanus in the peri-urban area (islet of Sancti Petri), or the one of Venus Marina in Erythia, which have not been yet identified archaeologically. In the excavations in the so-called Bishops House, religious structures from the Republican era have been found, linked to the cult of waters, whose sacred use would have been maintained in the imperial era, along with other buildings.
Its ports must have had special importance, both the urban one (divided into the so-called «Outer Port» and «Inner Port», on both sides of the inter-island channel) and the one ordered to be built by Balbus in the continental coastal area, called the Portus Gaditanus, possibly located in the current Puerto de Santa María. We know that the port of Gades had a quay from which Posidonius studied the tides, as Strabo tells us; and that the city had one or several lighthouses, of which there are many references in medieval literary sources, having identified two graffiti dating from the 5th century AD with the representation of staggered buildings in the cistern of a salting factory (former Andalucía Theater).
Despite the progress of the last decade and the availability of a first archaeological map of the ancient city, there are many unknowns that remain about the ancient city, highly affected by the marine dynamics that have eroded -and destroyed- much of its southern zone.