Forum of Roman Segovia
About
Beneath the old Jewish quarter, a 1990 excavation in Plaza de Guevara uncovered a colonnaded public space some 100 meters across, interpreted as part of a forum or a basilica flanking one — the only real hint of civic Roman Segovia beyond the aqueduct. Coverage of the dig dates the occupation broadly to the 1st or 2nd century CE; a Flavian date around municipal promotion under Vespasian's Latin Rights edict (73-74 CE) is plausible but not fixed by any tighter excavated terminus. Coordinates approximate the find neighborhood, not a surveyed point.
What happened here
Business starts at first light. The magistrates' tribunal opens, cases are called, and the crowd that gathers to listen is half the point of coming. Money-changers work from tables under the porticoes, weighing coin from a dozen mints against the local rate. Notices are painted on the walls and whitewashed over when they go stale: elections, gladiator shows, a lost slave, a house to let. By the sixth hour the heat empties the open square and the arcades fill instead. Statues of the town's benefactors stand between the columns, and the men who paid for them expect to be greeted by name. Public slaves sweep at dusk. The forum is where a Roman town keeps its records, its gossip and its self-regard in the same place.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →