Last Thursday, Desiderio Vaquerizo’s book was presented in a packed Liceo Hall of the Royal Circle of Friendship. ‘Roman Córdoba. The hidden cityfrom publisher Almuzara. The author was accompanied by Nicolás de Bari Millán, vice president of the Círculo, Manuel Pimentel … by Almuzara, Eugenio Sánchez Ramade sponsor of the publication, and the mayor of Córdoba José María Bellido. In his interventions, everyone highlighted the quality of the work and its opportunity to highlight the importance of this past of our city, often put aside for the splendor Umayyad.
Without a doubt, it achieves its objective. It is the great book about Cordova Roman. With a large format (she weighed 5 kilos at birth, 300 grams more than mine, ‘Córdoba, eternal city’) unites rigor and dissemination through the splendid photographs of Rafael Carmona, the beautiful recreations and a text by Desiderio Vaquerizo halfway between archeology and history. Desiderio, professor of Archeology at the University of Córdoba, has spent more than four decades claiming Roman Córdoba, with words and deeds, with looks at that rich past, but also as a way of understanding what came after and our present. Desiderio is all passion and with this publication he has achieved that necessary book about which he was Patricia Colony and, at the same time, the great book of his life, until now. Congratulations.
We are children of Rome. Rome arrived in our area in 205 BC. C., founded the city in the middle of the 2nd century BC. C. and lasted even beyond 476, when the Western Roman Empire fell. The Hispano-Romans of Cordoba maintained their signs of identity in the Visigoth era and until the arrival of Islam in 711. In between, we were the capital of the province Baetica, which gave emperors, philosophers, senators and writers; We were the main river port in southern Hispania, which brought oil, wine and metals to the Empire and brought everything that Rome produced; We had colossal forums, monumental temples, theatre, circus and amphitheater.
At first glance, today we can barely see the bridge, some remains of walls, the columns of the temple on Claudio Marcelo Street (please do not call it Calle Nueva, respect the name of our founder), the mosaics of the Alcázar. or the capitals and columns of the first parts of the Mosque-Cathedral. But the legacy of Rome in Córdoba is still with us. Rome established us as a crossroads, gave us the language, the law, taverns, urban planning, Senequism, it brought us Christianity and tonight, when the Archangel roars with 20,000 voices cheering for Córdoba in its match for promotion, We will imitate those people from Córdoba who packed the circus located in the current Garden City. Because Rome also brought us the taste for public spectacles. And there we continue.
