• Green: Perimeter of the fort
• Black: Design of the Roman city 300 years later
• Red: Part of the design of the current city

Computer graphics of the camp

THE FOUNDATION OF A CITY

LEGIONAIRE FORT

Before being a city, Astorga was a military camp .The modern urban archaeology has discovered part of the defensive enclosure of that quartering of troops, a line of moats that the Legio X Gemina excavated surrounding the hill in which Asturica Augusta was settled.

• Black: Design of the Roman city
• Grey: Part of the design of the current city

Computer graphics of the Roman city Asturica Augusta

THE SPLENDOUR OF THE EMPIRE

THE CITY OF ASTURICA

The foundation of Asturica Augusta is closely linked to the organization of the Astur land undertaken by Augustus, once the conquest wars of the Hispanic North-west have finished.
Its proximity to the mine areas turned it into the administrative and civil centre of the land control, where the state machinery of the region is established, and, therefore, home of the Legacy and of the prosecutor for Asturia y Gallaecia, posts in close relation with the gold extractions which were centralized in the city until they were transported to Rome. The epigraphic and archaeological remains found in the city until this moment recount the complexity and the cosmopolitism which the Astur society reached during the first three centuries of its existence.
Astorga, therefore, has a strong urban character from its origins which has kept throughout twenty-one centuries,holding the commercial and cultural capital status of a wide geographical area which includes several regions.

• Blue: Roman sewers still in use
• Black: Design of the Roman city
• Grey: Part of the design of the current city

Roman Museum of Astorga

UP TO THE PRESENT DAY

THE ROMAN REMAINS
OF THE CITY OF ASTORGA

In 1978 Astorga is declared Archaeological Heritage, delimiting the area with its walls -built with defensive purposes in the late Roman time (beginning of the fourth century A.C)- as an area of special protection.
From 1984 onwards, systematic archaeological excavations have been made. Up to the present day, more than 150 sites have been archaeologically taken over and this has allowed to move forward notably in the investigation and knowledge of the ancient Asturica.
These works, in addition to their strictly scientific repercussion, have had another very enriching aspect which has led to measures of preservation 'in situ' of some of the architectural Roman remains found. The result of all this is the current Roman Route, a pioneering experience in Spain in terms of archaeological actions.