Italica

Listen for a moment. Under the cypress trees there is a soft rustle of wind, and somewhere a sparrow is scolding. The ground under your feet is pale, dusty earth, and the air carries a dry smell of sun-warmed grass. This quiet place, at the edge of the small town of Santiponce, was once a Roman city with paved avenues, grand houses and a crowd that could fill one of the largest arenas in the Roman world. Welcome to Italica.

The story begins with a war. In 206 BCE, Roman forces under the general Publius Cornelius Scipio defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Ilipa, not far from here. Scipio settled his wounded soldiers on this rise above the Guadalquivir valley. The name says it plainly: Italica, the place of the Italians. It is often described as the first Roman settlement in the Iberian Peninsula, a small seed of Rome planted far from home.

For its first two centuries, Italica was a modest provincial town. Its old core, which archaeologists call the old city, lies mostly beneath the streets and houses of modern Santiponce. That is the first surprise for many visitors. The ruins you walk through today are not the oldest part of Italica. They are the newer district, laid out much later. The original town is under the rooftops just behind you, and people still live on top of it.

What changed Italica's fortunes was one family. The emperor Trajan, who ruled Rome in the early second century, was born here. He was the first Roman emperor born outside Italy. His successor, Hadrian, came from an Italica family too, although historians still debate whether Hadrian himself was born here or in Rome. Either way, this small town on the edge of the empire suddenly had a direct line to the most powerful seat in the world.

Hadrian rewarded his ancestral home generously. Under his rule the city expanded into a new district, planned on an orderly grid with broad, straight streets. Some of those avenues were remarkably wide for a provincial town, lined with porticoes, or covered walkways, that gave shade from the Andalusian sun. As you walk, notice how the streets cross at right angles. This was a city drawn on a plan, meant to look imperial and to impress.

At the heart of the new city stood a large temple complex dedicated to the cult of Trajan, often called the Traianeum. Today you see mostly its foundations and the outline of its great courtyard. Use your imagination here. Picture white marble, columns, and statues of the emperor rising above the rooftops. Some of the finest sculptures found at Italica are now kept in the Archaeological Museum in Seville, which is worth a visit if you want to see them.

Now to the floors. The houses of Italica's wealthy citizens were decorated with mosaics, pictures made from thousands of small cubes of coloured stone. Several survive in place. One house is named for its mosaic of birds, each species in its own panel. Another shows the sea god Neptune surrounded by marine creatures. A third, the House of the Planetarium, shows the gods of the days of the week. Kneel down for a closer look, and you can see each tiny stone set by hand.

Then there is the amphitheatre, and nothing quite prepares you for it. The oval bowl sinks into the hillside, and its tiers of seating rise around you. It is usually counted among the largest amphitheatres in the Roman Empire, with room for roughly twenty-five thousand spectators. That is a surprising number for a city whose own population was far smaller. Crowds came from the whole surrounding region to watch the shows.

Stand in the arena and look down at its centre. There is a large rectangular pit cut into the ground. This was part of the machinery of the spectacle, covered by a wooden floor, with space below for people, animals and equipment. Gladiators waited in the dark passages before stepping into the sunlight and the roar of the crowd. Today the only sound is the wind across the stone, and perhaps the echo of your own footsteps.

Here is a modern twist. In recent years this same amphitheatre appeared on television screens around the world. It was used as a filming location for the series Game of Thrones, where it stood in for the Dragonpit, the ruined arena where rival rulers meet. Some visitors arrive because of the show, and leave having discovered a real story far older and stranger than any fantasy script.

Why did Italica fade? Several reasons are usually given. The Guadalquivir river shifted its course over the centuries, moving away from the city and its trade. Nearby Seville, then called Hispalis, grew into the dominant centre of the region. Parts of the new district also suffered from unstable ground. Slowly, people drifted away, and for many centuries the ruins became a quarry. Local builders carried off stone, and collectors took statues and mosaics.

Yet the ruins also inspired. In the seventeenth century, the Sevillian poet Rodrigo Caro wrote a famous poem to the ruins of Italica, a meditation on how even great cities fall into silence. Later travellers and Romantic writers came here to feel that same melancholy. Serious, systematic excavation came later still, and the work continues. Much of the city remains unexcavated, so the ground under these olive fields still holds secrets.

As you leave, walk slowly and look around once more. The broken column bases line the empty avenues. The mosaic floors sit open to the sky. The great bowl of the amphitheatre is quiet now, except for the birds. Two emperors traced their roots to this hillside. Beyond the gate, ordinary life goes on in Santiponce, built on top of the older Roman town. The past here is not far away. It is right under your feet.