Roman Eliocroca

The roman began the conquest of Hispania after defeating the Carthaginians, with the collaboration of the native tribes. The Iberian Peninsula territory was divided into two circumscriptions. On one hand, the hither Hispania, northwards, and on the other it was the ulterior, southwards. Lorca remained integrated in the hither province, receiving gradually the strong influence of the Romanization which arrived from the port of Carthago Nova, when it was conquered in 209 B.C.

The Roman colonization was transforming the nucleuses of population in Lorca. In the second half of the first century B.C.the first Roman villas began to appear and so, the Lorca Iberian was converted into Eliocroca. It is mentioned in the itinerary of Antonino and in the council of Elvira, as part of roman road ‘Via Augusta’. Its strategic position of transit between commercial routes boosted the flowering of the city that, to the end of the empire, it counted on a rich and multicultural society.

The exploitation of the Guadalentín fertile lowland would continue after the Roman conquest. The ancient Iberian points were not given up whatever the case of the villa of the Sancho Manuel Tower in the deputation of Torrecilla, or ‘El Carril de Caldereros. The process of Romanization would boost the creation of villae distributed for the region, in the areas with important natural resources, and next to the main communication routes such as Los Arrieros, La Balsica, Villa de Gales, Los Villares in Zarcilla de Ramos, Los Cantos… The best example in Lorca of this type of houses placed in the field has verified in La Quintilla.

Villa, villae. Roman house built in the field which served as the centre of exploitation of the territory.

The Diocletian administrative reform converted Lorca into the capital of the new Carthaginian province. The control practiced from this city towards the inside of the territory fell in the potentiation and reform of the communication routes and of the main nucleuses of population related to them.

Along the second and first centuries B.C., Lorca reached a great apogee due to its situation in the environs of the ‘Via Augusta’ and this developed an important urban repercussion.

From the first century A.C. the inhabitants of the urban nucleus lived together with the population of the villae and others distributed around the valley of the Guadalentín. They were dedicated to the agriculture and the cattle. And from the second century A.C. the rural population reached a great stability with more than 40 villas distributed around the current municipal term, as the villa of ‘El Villar de Coy’.

From the third century A.C., Eliocroca would return to be settled with the people arriving from the rural areas in searching for protection. Then it is shaped as an important urban nucleus environment around the hill of the castle from the four to the eight centuries A.C.

This population was distributed for the region and went eminently rural. We have to distinguish two types of enclaves: the typical rural villa and the towns in height.

The villa was the centre of exploitation of a terrain. Near the houses were placed housings for the storage of the grain, press, pools for the extraction of the oil and a series of structures for the agricultural and cattle exploitation.

The emplacements in height with bigger defensive guarantees, kept a strategic situation of control of an extensive territory, but they were far away from the communication routes.

The exploitation of cereals, wine and oils stood out among the cultivations practiced in this region.

The burials were carried out in necropolis near the villas and centres of exploitation, near stony and sterile emplacements. The type of burial practiced for the first roman was the incineration. Their remains were introduced in an urn together with other objects. On the tombs they placed sepulchral gravestones. From the third century A.C. the rite of the burial was generalized due to the influence of the Judaism and Christianity.

The corpse was introduced in a coffer and it was deposited in a grave which was covered with ground.
Near the deceased person they placed vessels of terra sigillata or common ceramic such as plasters, small bowls, vessels and fray, or big chandeliers, receptacles of glass and a currency. This last was to pay the passage in the Charon small boat.

Charon. In Roman time it was continued the Greek custom to place a currency in the mouth of the deceased, as price of the passage in the small boat of Charon, the marine of the hells.

In order to establish the intercommunication among the different Hispanic provinces, the roman drew a net of wide roads from the north to the south by the Levant, by the centre and by the west. The construction of these wide roads began in the year 206 B.C. Those weren’t well built, but were mere paths or narrow roads. The two more important roman roads went the ‘Vía Augusta’ and the ‘Vía de la Plata’. The first one linked Tarraco in Tarragona, with Carthago Nova in Cartagena and Gadir in Cadiz. In the municipal territory of Lorca four miliaries have appeared in different points of this ‘Vía Augusta’ in Hinojar, Baldazos, Lorca and La Parroquia.

In the borders of the roman ‘Vías’ steelyards a military column of stone was situated each certain distance, also called milliary, that it used to have an inscription with the name of the emperor and the distance which separated it from other milliary or of a nucleus of population.