Italica

Rediscovery and excavations

In recent centuries, the ruins became the subject of visits, admiration and despair by many foreign travellers who wrote about and sometimes illustrated their impressions. Italica's prestige, history and fame were not enough, however, to save it from being the subject of continued looting, and a permanent quarry for materials from Ancient times to modern ones. In 1740 the city of Seville ordered demolition of the walls of the amphitheatre to build a dam on the Guadalquivir, and in 1796 the vetus urbs was used to build the new Camino Real of Extremadura. The first law of protection for the site took effect in 1810 under the Napoleonic occupation, reinstating its old name of Italica, and allocating an annual budget for regular excavation.

One of the first excavators was the British textile merchant and Seville resident Nathan Wetherell, who uncovered nearly ten Roman inscriptions in the vicinity of Italica in the 1820s that were later donated to the British Museum. Regular excavation, however, did not materialise until 1839–1840. When excavations intensified towards the end of the 19th century, some of the mosaic floors have been acquired by the Countess of Lebrija. They are conserved in the palace the countess had built for this purpose, the Palace of the Countess of Lebrija. The archeologist responsible for the excavations at the time Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos tried to revert what he considered to be robbery rather than conservation by the countess, but she did not indulge in his complaints. By Royal Order of 1912 Italica was declared a National Monument, but it was not until 2001 that the archaeological site of Italica and the areas of protection were clearly defined.

The site

As no modern city covered many of Italica's buildings of the nova urbs, the result is an unusually well-preserved Roman city with cobbled Roman streets and mosaic floors still in situ. Many rich finds can also be seen in the Seville Archaeological Museum, with its famous marble statue of Trajan.

The archaeological site of Italica encompasses mainly the nova urbs with its many fine buildings from the Hadrianic period. The original vetus urbs (old town) lies under the present town of Santiponce.

Extensive excavation and renovation of the site has been done recently and is continuing.

The small baths and the Theatre are some of the oldest visible remains, both built before Hadrian.

Italica’s amphitheatre was the third largest in the Roman Empire at the time, being slightly larger than the Tours Amphitheatre in France. It seated 25,000 spectators, about half as many as the Colosseum in Rome. The size is surprising given that the city's population at the time is estimated to have been only 8,000, and shows that the local elite demonstrated status that extended far beyond Italica itself through the games and theatrical performances they funded as magistrates and public officials.

From the same period is the elite quarter with several beautiful (and expensive) houses decorated with splendid mosaics visible today, particularly the:

• House of the Exedra
• House of the Neptune Mosaic
• House of the Birds Mosaic
• House of the Planetarium Mosaic
• House of Hylas
• House of the Rhodian Patio.

The Traianeum

The Traianeum was a large, imposing temple in honour of the Emperor Trajan, built by his adopted son and successor, Hadrian. It occupies a central double insula at the highest point of nova urbs. It measures 108 x 80 m and is surrounded by a large porticoed square with alternating rectangular and semicircular exedra around its exterior housing sculptures. The temple precinct was decorated with over a hundred columns of expensive Cipollino marble from Euboea, and various fountains.

Aqueduct

The aqueduct of 37 km total length was first built in the 1st c. AD and extended under Hadrian to add a more distant source for supplying the expanded city. It fed a huge cistern at the edge of the city which remains intact. Some of the piers of the arches are still visible near the city.