Roman city of Complutum
Built from a new plan during the time of Emperor Augustus (1st century BC)
Roman city of Complutum
The Roman city of Complutum, was built anew in the time of the Emperor Augustus (70st century BC), beginning its abandonment at the end of the XNUMXth century or the beginning of the XNUMXth AD Despite being known to antiquarians and collectors since the XNUMXth century, it was traumatically rediscovered by research in the XNUMX's when it was partially destroyed by the construction of a neighborhood. Since that time, archaeological excavations have shown that this city would follow the classical Roman scheme and would have public and private buildings, a sanitation network and important suburban areas.
The Roman city of Complutum it was located next to the river Henares, in a privileged position with respect to the fertile valleys that define the landscapes of the southern part of the current Community.
The oldest documented archaeological remains belong to a village from the Chalcolithic period.
Later some materials, very scarce, seem to refer to a presence of pre-Roman, or even Roman republican (IV - I BC), although no associated structures have been located.
The immense majority of the preserved remains correspond to a city built on a new plant during the Augustus era (towards the change of Era), with major urban reforms in the time of Claudius and Nero (50-60 years of the first century AD) and mid-third century AD From the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth century AD, the city was abandoned, and its construction materials were even dismantled for a new use, although it seems that some buildings remained in use at least during the sixth century. Subsequently only agricultural activities and extractive tasks destined to the pillaging of construction material are documented, especially from the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
The urban design of the main core of Complutum it extended more than 50 hectares, with relatively clear limits, marked by the confluence of the rivers Henares and Camarmilla, taking advantage of a flat surface in the plain of the Henares river. Its structure is the usual one of the Roman world, based on an orthogonal plot. The apples are drawn on the basis of the two central axes: a maximum decumano and a maximum thistle. The apples were organized by arcaded streets.
We also know the elaborate orthogonal layout network. The water supply was made through a public system with large sewers and wells / fountains that are documented in almost all the porticos and, at a private level, with collection systems in the houses themselves. The water supply by means of aqueduct has been documented only in two points, and in both cases it is thermal installations.
There is a variety of public buildings, mostly constructed through CONCRETE work, the characteristic Roman concrete, reinforced by ashlar masonry and lined with painted plaster and marble decorations. The main building, next to what would be the location of the forum, is the large administrative building, presided over by a civil basilica, which would perform judicial functions, administration and government, and which also seems to incorporate an urban sanctuary. This building was built in the 3rd century AD on older buildings, from the 1st century AD, which originally included public baths, a basilica and a quadriport. The great rehabilitation of the third century was commemorated with an epigraph with a poetic inscription that some authors believe can be attributed to a text by Virgil. To this we must add a small market, a second public baths, a monumental arch of four fronts (tetrapylone), a building intended for religious, divinatory and lustral uses (the so-called auguraculum) and a large urban sanctuary.
Several private buildings are also known. Most are domus, or stately homes, such as the houses of Bacchus, Leda, Cupidos, Cupidos II, Peces and recovered in recent excavations and open to the public in current itineraries, the houses of Mars, the Atrium, the Lucerna de la Máscara Teatral, and the house of the Griffins.
Another characteristic of old urbanism that can be seen in this city is the proliferation of important suburban spaces of different types in the vicinity of the main nucleus. The first of them is located in the Cerro del Viso, probably being the nucleus where the city originates, perhaps at the end of the Republican era, and that perhaps coexisted with the main nucleus as a kind of "upper city" or acropolis . A second "acropolis" is located in another of the nearby hills, where later the medieval Islamic city of Alcalá la Vieja developed, to the east of the city. In addition, in the plain, spaces of diverse functionality were located around the northern limit, such as the so-called Casa de Hippolytus and the so-called Casa Camarmilla, as well as an extension of spaces and suburban villas to the east, parallel to the Henares river, such as the Villa del Val, La Magdalena and the so-called Campo Laudable. In addition, burial areas have been documented, next to the eastern entrances, the Matillas necropolis, and the northern entrance, the Achilles mausoleum.
The first references to this city can be found in classical sources, mainly in the works of Plinio, Antonino, Paulino de Nola and Prudencio. It also has an abundant major and minor epigraphy that helps us to understand various social, political and economic aspects of the functioning of the city.
Image gallery
Mosaic Emblem triclinium from the house of Bacchus.
Regional Archaeological Museum.
Cover of the work of 1575
Antiques of the cities of Spain, of which Ambrosio de Morales is the author, and where several remains come from Complutum. Image courtesy of Helena Gimeno.
Detail of the poetic inscription that commemorates the construction of the administrative building.
Detail of the mural paintings in room E of the House of Griffins.
General view of the South thermal baths
General view of the administrative building, from the south
Archaeological performance
The city of Complutum It was already known at the end of the sixteenth century, thanks to the early research of Ambrosio de Morales. These first excavations carried out with an antiquarian spirit and collector gave rise to a continuous tradition of works of this type throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, highlighting some remarkable archaeological discoveries in the late nineteenth, unfortunately lost almost completely. He also highlighted at this time the creation of the Complutense Museum, installed towards 1882 in the former General Archive of the Administration, destroyed by a fire in 1939.
Modern archeology rediscovered Complutum on the occasion of the destruction of half of the Roman city between 1970 and 1974, caused by the construction of the neighborhood of Reyes Católicos and Puerta de Madrid. From that date are some rescue interventions by Dimas Fernández-Galiano, who formulated a first general hypothesis of the city. His thesis, published in 1984, outlined an interesting city in the interior of Spain, with a rich private life in the 3rd and 4th centuries that was exemplified in several urban houses.
In the decade of the 80, and later in the 90, the City Council of Alcalá de Henares acquired the land in which the central part of the site was located and began to promote actions on it. But it was from the year 1999 / 2000 when there were intense tasks of excavation, research, restoration and valorization that culminated in the opening to the public successively of several areas of the site: in 1999 (the so-called Casa de Hippolytus), 2009 (sector of the forum and royal II), 2012 (extension of the same sector) and 2017 (House of the Griffins).
As far as research is concerned, in this period it is relevant to quote the thesis of Sebastián Rascón Marqués, defended in 2004, in which this author proposed a general interpretation of urbanism and the archaeological characteristics of Complutum. Subsequently, the research on urbanism and various large buildings, public and private, has continued thanks mainly to works by the same author and Ana Lucia Sanchez, who did his doctoral thesis on domestic architecture Complutense in 2017.
Likewise, the last fifteen years have also produced important advances on the conservation, restoration and musealization of the site.
Complutum has had an important contribution to fill the great gaps existing on the Antiquity in the peninsular center, demonstrating the existence of an important city in a strongly Romanized environment. An added interest of Complutum is that it is one of the few Hispanic cities in which it is documented with abundant data the survival of a strong Roman urban culture until very late dates, in the III and IV centuries AD