Actually, the origins of Seville aren’t found in Rome, as its first settlers had been living in the area a long time before. These quickly adapted to the coming of the Greeks and the Phoenicians, maintaining commercial relations with them. Finally the arrival of the Carthaginians implicated the conquest of the area in which we find Seville.

The arrival of the Romans

The Romans might have arrived from the south of the peninsula on one of their conquest campaigns but the reality is that they came here to fight their enemies, the Carthaginians.  Nevertheless once they’d defeated Anibal, they decided to stay owing to the wealth and fertility of these lands as well as the good reception from its citizens.

For this reason, the city of Hispalis (Seville), with its great river -called Betis by the Romans-, was established  as a commercial settlement, while the city of Italica was founded in 206 AD for the veterans from the war. Italica is situated on the outskirts of Seville, in its ruins are mosaics of the Domus romans, the amphitheatre and the roman theatre, without doubt this is a place that is worth a visit. Italica was in its time the birthplace of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian.

Julius Caesar and the colony of Hispalis

However, Seville had a relationship with another great historical character in the History of Rome.  Julius Caesar himself was its quaestor, the person responsible for its taxes. Later on, due to the love he had for Hispalis, which had treated him so well, he bestowed the city the title of ‘Colonia Iulia Romula Híspalis’ which meant that its inhabitants became roman citizens in their own right.

And so, Seville -Hispalis- became one of the biggest commercial and industrial centres of the Betica -the southern region of the peninsula that had been established by the Romans- and as such, little by little, it was strengthening into a city with walls, temples, thermal baths and a forum. This was situated in the centre of the current historical centre in the Alfafa Square, while the baths were close to the area of the Cathedral. The Cardo and the Decumanus dived the city by north to south and east to west, respectively. However, owing to the fact that all of this was situated in what is today the historic centre, with the evolution of the centuries very few examples remain from this period.

For its part, Italica went from being a typical roman residential city to being the current town of Santiponce. For Game of Thrones fans, here various scenes were filmed in the amphitheatre, which centuries before had been where the gladiator fights were held.

Finally in the 3^rd century, in the middle of the expansion of Christianity, Hispalis was one of the most important cities of Hispania. Like with the rest of the empire, after its fall, numerous Germanic peoples penetrated the territory.  The Visigoths settled in Seville.

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Image source: Flickr. Paul vanDer Werf