By Ines Keane
Most ancient cities are ruins you walk around. Mérida is a town you live in, with the ruins built into it. UNESCO puts it plainly: the modern city “has been built on top of Emerita”, and the remains still show the Roman plan underneath.
Founded for retired soldiers
UNESCO says the colony of Augusta Emerita was founded in 25 BC, at the end of the Spanish campaign, and became the capital of Lusitania, the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. Wikipedia’s article on the amphitheatre adds a detail about the name: the city was founded by Augustus to resettle emeritus soldiers, men honourably discharged from two veteran legions of the Cantabrian Wars. UNESCO describes the city as an idealised model of Rome.
The story does not stop with Rome. UNESCO says that after Diocletian’s reform the city served as capital of the Diocese of Hispania, that it was for a time the royal seat of the Suebi and then the Visigoths, and that under Arab rule it was one of three border capitals of Al-Andalus, alongside Toledo and Zaragoza.
What UNESCO lists
The Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida has 22 component parts covering 31 hectares, listed under criteria (iii) and (iv). Wikipedia gives the inscription year as 1993. The parts include the theatre and amphitheatre, the forum, bridges, a dyke, water systems, the Temple of Diana and the Temple of Marte, and private houses named as the Casa del Anfiteatro, the Casa Basílica and the Casa del Mitreo. Some pieces sit outside the walls: dams, aqueducts and the thermal baths of Alange.
UNESCO also notes that many structures still do their original job or have been adapted, naming the bridge, the dyke, the Arch of Trajan, the dams and the sewers.
The theatre
A Whitman College page on the theatre, which reproduces a 2017 Wikipedia article, says the theatre was promoted by the consul Vipsanius Agrippa and built in the years 16 to 15 BCE. It gives a seating capacity of about 6,000 and a diameter of about 86 metres. The stage front is the showpiece: Corinthian columns with blue-veined marble shafts on a base of red marble, and the page says the originals of the statues between the columns are kept in the nearby National Museum of Roman Art.
The page says the present stage front seems to date from the time of Trajan, so what the first one looked like is unknown. After the theatre was abandoned it was slowly covered with earth, leaving only the top rows of seats visible, and local folklore called the place “The Seven Chairs”. The same page says the stage front was rebuilt in the 1960s and 1970s. UNESCO agrees that it was rebuilt on an exceptional basis, following anastylosis criteria, and says the general policy allows consolidation but no reconstruction.
The amphitheatre
According to Wikipedia, the amphitheatre was inaugurated in 8 BC and is now in ruins. It is elliptical, with a major axis of 126 metres and a minor axis of just under 102 metres, and an arena of 64 by 44 metres. The central pit, the fossa bestiaria, was covered with wood and sand and held animals before they were released. Wikipedia gives a capacity of about 15,000. UNESCO says only parts of the stands and some vaults were restored in the twentieth century.
The festival
The Mérida International Classical Theatre Festival says on its own website that it is the oldest classical theatre festival in Spain, with performances in July and August in the Roman Theatre, and 70 editions so far. It began in 1933 and it says there was a second edition in 1934, then a gap of 19 years until 1953. UNESCO, more briefly, says the theatre’s classical festival “dates back to the 1930s”.
Dates in order
- 25 BC: colony founded, according to UNESCO.
- 16 to 15 BCE: theatre built, according to the Whitman page.
- 8 BC: amphitheatre inaugurated, according to Wikipedia.
- 1933: first festival edition, according to the festival.
- 1953: festival resumes, according to the festival.
- 1993: UNESCO inscription, according to Wikipedia and the Whitman page.
Side by side
The festival’s own site says the first production in 1933 was Seneca’s Medea, in a version by Miguel de Unamuno. The city tourism site says Medea in “the version of the work written by Euripides”. Both agree on the year and on the actress Margarita Xirgu. We show both and do not choose.
Our reading: the festival site is the more detailed source on its own history, and the tourism page is the shorter one, but neither explains the difference.
What kind of sources these are
UNESCO is an official listing. The festival site is the organiser’s own account of itself, so its claim to be the oldest festival of its kind, and its remark that the theatre is the oldest functioning theatre in the world, are claims rather than findings. The tourism site is promotional by nature. Wikipedia is open to anyone, and the Whitman page is a copy of a Wikipedia article from 2017, so treat it as Wikipedia.
What we left out
Opening hours, ticket rules, prices, the names of living people involved in running the festival, and any account of religious festivals.
Quick answers
When was Mérida founded? In 25 BC as the colony of Augusta Emerita, according to UNESCO, and it became the capital of the province of Lusitania.
When is the Roman Theatre festival? According to the festival’s website, performances take place each July and August in the Roman Theatre.
How many people did the Roman amphitheatre hold? About 15,000, according to Wikipedia; the Roman theatre held about 6,000, according to the Whitman page.
Roam first. Shop later.
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