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The city of
Carteia
(Roman colony founded in 171 B.C.) in
Spain
Bronze Semis 23mm (7.77 grams) Struck after 44 B.C.
Reference: ACIP 2615; RPC I 122
Turreted head of Fortuna right.
Neptune
standing left, holding
dolphin
and trident.
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In
Roman mythology
,
Fortuna
(equivalent to the
Greek
goddess
Tyche
) goddess of fortune, was the
personification
of
luck; hopefully she brought good luck, but she could be represented
veiled and blind, as modern depictions of
Justice
are seen, and came to represent the
capriciousness of life. Atrox Fortuna claimed the lives of
Augustus
‘ two hopeful grandsons, educated to
take up princely roles, for she was also a goddess of
fate
. Her father was Jupiter, and though she
had no lovers or children of her own, Fortuna was propitiated by mothers.
Fortuna had a retinue that included
Copia
, “bounty”, among her blessings. Under
the name Annonaria she protected grain supplies. In the Roman calendar,
June 11 was sacred to Fortuna, with a greater festival to Fors Fortuna on
the 24th.
Roman writers disagreed whether her cult was introduced to Rome by
Servius Tullius
. or
Ancus Marcius
. Fortuna had a temple in the
Forum Boarium
and a public sanctuary on the
Quirinalis
, as the tutelary genius of
Roma herself, Fortuna Populi Romani, the “Fortune of the Roman
people”, for Fortuna, the embodiment of the chaotic chance event as modern
historians would see it, was closely tied by the Romans to
virtus
, strength of character; flaws in the
main public actors brought on the calamities of ill fortune, as Roman historians
like Sallust
saw her role: “Truly, when in the place
of work, idleness, in place of the
spirit of measure and equity
, caprice and pride
invade, fortune is changed just as with morality”.
Neptune
(Latin:
Neptūnus) was the
god of water and the sea
in
Roman mythology
and
religion
. He is analogous with, but not
identical to, the Greek god
Poseidon
. In the
Greek-influenced tradition
, Neptune was the
brother of
Jupiter
and
Pluto
, each of them presiding over one of the
three realms of the universe, Heaven, Earth and the Netherworld. Depictions of
Neptune in Roman mosaics
, especially those of
North Africa
, are influenced by
Hellenistic
conventions.
Unlike the Greek
Oceanus
,
titan
of the world-ocean, Neptune was
associated as well with fresh water.
Georges Dumézil
suggested that for
Latins
, who were not a seafaring people, the
primary identification of Neptune was with freshwater springs. Like
Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans also as a god of horses, under
the name Neptunus Equester, a
patron
of horse-racing.
Carteia was a
Phoenician
and
Roman
town at the head of the
Bay of Gibraltar
in
Spain
. It was established at the most northerly
point of the bay, about halfway between the modern cities of
Algeciras
and
Gibraltar
, overlooking the sea on elevated
ground at the confluence of two rivers. According to
Strabo
, it was founded around 940 BC as the
trading settlement of Kʿrt (meaning “city” in the
Phoenician language
; compare
Carthage
and
Cartagena
). The area had much to offer a
trader; the hinterland behind Carteia, in the modern south of
Andalusia
, was rich in wood, cereals, oranges,
lemons, lead, iron, copper and silver. Dyes were another much sought-after
commodity, especially those from the
murex
shellfish, used to make the prized
Tyrian purple
.
The town’s strategic location meant that it played a significant role in the
wars between Carthage and the
Roman Republic
in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.
It may have been the site of
Hannibal
‘s landing with his army and elephants
in 237 BC, and in 206 BC the Carthaginian admiral
Adherbal
retreated there with the remnants of
his fleet after being defeated by
Gaius Laelius
in the
Battle of Carteia
. Around 190 BC, the town was
captured by the Romans.
Roman and medieval
period
Livy
records that in 171 BC, the
Roman Senate
was petitioned by a group of
Romano-Spanish people, the sons of Roman soldiers and Spanish women. Although
they were of Roman descent they were not regarded as Roman citizens, nor were
they allowed to marry Roman citizens. The Senate responded by elevating Carteia
to the status of a
Roman colony
and granting around 4,000
Romano-Spanish people the right to live there and receive a grant of land on a
similar basis to Roman colonists. The existing inhabitants were permitted to
remain there, while all of the inhabitants were given the right to marry Roman
citizens and to carry on trade with Romans. This marked a significant innovation
for Rome’s overseas colonies; the Carteians were the first outside Italy to
receive a civic status known as the
Latin Rights
, half-way between being a
non-citizen provincial and a full Roman citizen. Other cities in Spain were
later granted a similar status.
The Colonia Libertinorum Carteia (Freedmen’s Colony of Carteia)
prospered for another 580 years under Roman rule and grew to become a
substantial city. It gained its own mint, amphitheatre, temples and port, and
played a significant role in late Roman Republican affairs.
Pompey
made it his western base for his
campaign against Mediterranean pirates in 68 BC. His sons
Gnaeus
and
Sextus
raised an army there in 45 BC before
being defeated by
Julius Caesar
at the
Battle of Munda
. While Gnaeus was captured and
executed, Sextus escaped via Carteia’s port and fled to the Pyrenees.
Little is known of the remainder of Carteia’s Roman history, but it appears
to have been sacked by the
Visigoths
around 409 AD, by which time it was
probably already in decline. Nonetheless, archaeological evidence shows that
urban life continued there into the medieval period. A Visigothic necropolis
exists near one of the Roman temples, and
Byzantine
remains found at the site show its
continued occupation when Carteia was incorporated into the Byzantine province
of Spania
during the 6th-7th centuries. In the 9th
century, after the
Umayyad conquest of Hispania
, Islamic sources
referred to the town – which was probably not much more than a village by then –
as Qartayanna or Cartagena. A tower, known today as the Torre de
Cartagena, was built by the
Marinids
nearby using stones from the ruined
Roman walls.
Rediscovery
and current condition
The site of Carteia was rediscovered by a young British Army officer,
John Conduitt
, who served in Gibraltar as
commissary
to the garrison between April 1713
to early 1717. He identified the city as having stood on a hill then known as El
Rocadillo, which
Richard Ford
described in his
A Handbook for Travellers in Spain
(1845):
The coast road is intersected by the rivers Guadaranque and
Palmones; on crossing the former is the eminence El Rocadillo,
now a farm, and corn grows where once Carteia flourished … The remains of
an ampitheatre, and the circuit of walls about 2 miles, may yet be traced.
The Moors and Spaniards have alike destroyed the ruins, working them up as a
quarry in building Algeciras and
San Roque
. The coins found here are very
beautiful and numerous … Mr. Kent, of the port-office at Gibraltar, formed
a Carteian museum, consisting of medals, pottery, glass, &c.
Conduitt communicated his discovery to the
Royal Society
in London and was invited to read
a paper on Carteia on his return to the capital. He did so on 20 June 1717, with
Sir Isaac Newton
in attendance as chair.
Coincidentally, Newton was also interested in Carteia, as he was in the middle
of writing his work
The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
, and he
invited Conduitt to his home to discuss the ancient city. It was there that
Conduitt met Newton’s niece,
Catherine Barton
. After a whirlwind courtship
the two were married on 26 August 1717, though Barton was almost a decade older
than Conduitt, albeit still renowned for her beauty.
An early 19th century writer, the anonymous “Calpensis”, described how he had
“often walked over the site of Carteia, attracted by the rich variety of broken
pieces of marble scattered over the fields. Part of the wall enclosing the
farm-house was then rudely made up of broken pillars, columns and cornices, of
marble of the finest workmanship.” Some of the earliest excavations were carried
out at the behest of the British; in 1811–12, Vice-Admiral
Charles Penrose
reached agreement with the
estate’s owners to allow amateur antiquarians from Gibraltar to “excavate and
examine any part of its ground for antiquities.” The excavations found the
remains of a tessellated Roman pavement, which was thought to belong to a
temple, as well as foundations of Roman buildings.
Although the area around Carteia was open farmland in the time of “Calpensis”,
it is now heavily industrialised. The site of Carteia is surrounded on three
sides by an oil refinery. It was not given protection until as late as the
1960s, by which time the necropolis and city gates had been lost to encroaching
development. However, the main urban area has been preserved and can be visited.
A number of significant structures can still be seen, including the original
Carthaginian city gate, a monumental sandstone flight of steps leading down to
what was possibly the forum, a large temple, a number of houses and an extensive
Roman baths. The 16th century Torre de Rocadillo can also be seen. The
Carteia Archaeological Museum in San Roque displays archaeological finds from
the site.
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