Empuries - Greek colony, Roman city, Medieval center

To feel the succession of centuries, the Iberic promontories where Greeks arrived to live among the original Spaniards and shape their culture, and to trade around the Mediterranean and bring gods and goods, you go to Empuries (from Emporia, the Greek colony named for its brisk marketplace).

We parked under trees next to the unearthing of a Roman metal factory that had been a Greek necropolis many centuries previous (9th c. BC). That was when Iberians had lived on a little nearby peninsula (now the village of Sant Marti), as had other Iberians in scattered groups on the neighboring headlands and on hills among the marshes. They traded with Etruscans, Phoenicians and Greeks, the latter of whom came from Phocaea (in Anatolia, via their settlement in Marseille) to settle among the Iberians in the 7th c BC, and a century later to establish Neapolis, the new city.

The temple quarters of Neapolis

The ruins of Neapolis lie under the hot sun at the edge of the Mediterranean which beats this shore with special force, its waves thundering audibly beyond the graceful pines leaning along these less refined beaches.

It has been said that when the Phocaeans were setting sail they heard a voice which told them to name as head of their expedition the man chosen by the Goddess Artemis of Ephesus, whither they sailed. One day, Aristarche, one of the most respected women in Ephesus, had dreams in which she saw the Goddess standing in front of her telling her to embark with the Phocaeans. The colonists carried out this command and, when they reached the end of their expedition, they built the sanctuary and bestowed the highest honors on Aristarche by making her a priestess. In all the colonies of Massalia, Artemis is venerated above all other deities.

Asclepius found in Neapolis

Following Artemis, came gentler gods for the households, Demeter and Egyptian phallic Bez. But the coast was unhealthy so Asclepius, god of healing, became the next deity. His larger than life statue was found in the imposing temple quarter you first encounter. Then you encounter the Greek and Italic houses of 2 stone rooms and workshops, sometimes clustered around a courtyard with a rainwater cistern.

The Greek settlement, closer to the sea, has the disciplined structure of Roman cities, but now all that remains are waist high reddish rock ruins, once one of Greece's main outposts in Northern Spain. One house was destined to hold banquets (symposia) for free men. At the entrance to the room is a Greek inscription which has been translated as "How sweet it is to be reclined."

Symposium

A sanctuary was dedicated to Isis and to Serapis, Egyptian divinities linked to medicine, housed in a large area with porticoes. The temple was built over a previously porticoed space that was a gymnasium from the Hellenistic period (2nd c. BC).

Then we walked among the piney, sweet dunes along the beaches of rock and less golden sand, along the enormous Greek stone jetty which remains, to the original Iberian settlement, now a small medieval rise of stone buildings (mainly restaurants to feed Greco-Roman fans from Empuries) on the promontory to which the remnants of the population had retreated as Empuries ceded its importance to Rhodes and Gerunda after 1 AD. We ate suquet, a slow-cooked savory bouillabaise-like seafood stew, served by a hardworking sweet-faced blonde, near the waves the pounded the soft beach while children slipped away from their lunch tables to roll in the sand.

Roman ruins

In 218 the Roman General Scipio the African landed on the promontory, to cut off the Carthaginian rearguard, as Hannibal of Carthage was marching his elephants around Spain. As in Sicily and Sardinia, the Romans waged their Punic wars over the homes of the Iberians, who resisted them, but romanisation was an irresistible force. The Romans set up a permanent encampment north of the Greek village, which became Municipium Empuriae, an imposing Roman city, in the 1st c. BC. With the paving of streets and temples to Roman gods, the Iberians became assimilated, and the culture eliminated.

Roman mosaics

The Roman city, across soothing gardens of poplar, lavendar and grasses, in the velvet unearthly shade of oaks, elms and pines, had monumental homes built around courtyards, with mosaic floors of surreal geometric patterns.

Roman room

There is an enormous reconstruction of a tiny section of the forum's portico, feels massive, the tonnage hauled feels punishing, though we see little today but the waist-high rock rubble. Aristocratic homes had towered here, and the forum on a giant's scale had had numerous temple and the Basilica, composed of administrative buildings.

Small reconstructed section of Forum portico

Along the north-south cardio maximus, just beyond the massive and ugly wall (topped with blackening concrete--Romans had just invented it) was the amphitheatre, little left but a perfect round foundation to remember its cruelty. It was built in the 1st c. AD outside the city walls and was typical of the architecture where gladiators fought each other or wild beasts. The now vanished wooden seats could hold 3,300 spectators. I stood in the center and imagined myself a gladiator facing all but certain death, with a heart full of stoic Roman bravado. A large penis was clearly incised at the gateway, for luck and prosperity.

Good luck phallus

We walked on the wall and realized it was hollow, for its ceiling had crumbled in places. At a small window opening into an enclosed room a gray tabby cat gazed at me calmly, till her tiny ones began tumbling and mewing in the wall enclosure. She rose to take her stand, hissing and yowling at Jacques who towered above her.

Nearby is the medieval city of Castello d'Empuries, celebrated with Catalan banners hanging over narrow stone streets, we found the Cathedral of Sta. Maria open, monumental with a huge square bell tower of several stories with gothic windows split by gothic columns. But the blackening stone had no grace. Inside, the enormous gothic fault had been renovated, but the 15th c. alabaster retable was lively as German gothic, with broad faced angels.

Cathedral Santa Maria

The most beautiful aspect was the portal of fierce-faced apostles, 15th c., whose glares, Jacques remarked, would never be found on a French church. But, lively and arresting, they defied us across the centuries, while pigeons kissed Mary's face as they courted each other, and hefty Germans sketched them over beer from their cafe tables.