Conimbriga Guide, Portugal

Conimbriga Guides

This, The LARGEST and MOST extensively excavated Roman site in Portugal, was on the Roman road between Lisbon ( Olisipo ) and Braga ( Bracara Ausguata ). There is evidence of Roman habitation as early as the 2nd century BC, but if was under Ausgutus, from about 25 BC, that Conimbriga became a substantial town: baths, a forum and the aqueduct have been uncovered from this era. The finest buildings, howeber, date from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, and they provide a vivid image of a prosperous city.

The site is a approached along a section of Roman road that led into the city from the east. Just to left cluster the outlines of shops, baths and two once-luxurious houses, both with exquisite mosaic floors.

At Conimbriga is one of the largest houses discovered in the western Roman empire. This opulent villa, known as the Casa de Cantaber, is built around ornamental pools in superd colonnaded gardens, with its own bath complex and a sophisticated heating system. Some of the fine mosaics in the meseum probably came from this huge residence.

The casa das Frontes, dating from the half of the 2nd century, is under a protective cover but walkways provide a good view =. Its pictorial mosaics and fountains, rare survivals, which give the house its name, form a strong image of the Roman taste for good living. The city’s pools, and the baths and steam rooms of Trajan’s thermae, were fed by a spring 3.5 km ( 2 miles ) away via an aqueduct, mostly subterranean, built in the time of Augustus.