Lydia Yanel
Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) (EFE).- That morning of April 17, 1996, the archaeologists looked towards the area excavated by the workers and saw something similar to “a face”; They lowered the two meters of unevenness and before them an exceptional Hercules in bronze arose. 27 years have passed since the sculpture appeared to corroborate the importance of Caesarobriga (Talavera) in Roman Hispania.
César Pacheco was one of the two archaeologists (together with Alberto Moraleda) who were working on a survey of San Clemente street in Talavera de la Reina that day.
“I felt very satisfied, especially because I saw that I could give Talavera a name, place Talavera on the map of Roman Hispania. It was evidence of the social, religious and political vitality that the Roman city Caesarobriga would have had, ”he recalls to Agencia EFE in an interview.
After years away from Talavera, the Hercules returned in December as a central figure in the exhibition ‘Hercules in Talavera’, open until June at the Ruiz de Luna Ceramics Museum and curated by Gema Alonso.
That sculpture of Hercules, from the 2nd century, is exceptional because there are barely three other examples of this type in Spain: made of bronze, it measures 54 centimeters, weighs nine and a half kilos, and reproduces the classic Greek model of Lysippus.
Hercules is the most popular hero in classical mythology and his cult in the Iberian Peninsula dates back to the first contacts with the Mediterranean world, as a continuation of the cult of the Phoenician god Melqart.
But beyond its description, the sculpture and the life-size leg found next to it (also in bronze) confirmed, archaeologically, the importance in Hispania of Caesarobriga, as had already been intuited given the high number of located epigraphy: it is the second city of Castilla-La Mancha with more Roman epigraphy.
There are several explanations for placing the cult of Hercules in Caesarobriga: it could be a deity for travelers, as was done in other parts of the Empire, and be focused on the military, since it is attested that there were active soldiers and veterans in the city retired; but it could also be linked to the Roman baths that were very close to the land where it was located.
What is clear is that a sculpture of these dimensions alludes to public worship (it is not a small piece for a domestic oratory) at a time in the Empire before the establishment of Christianity (in the fourth century with the Emperor Constantine).
When locating it in a mess of earth, the suspicions are that both Hercules and the leg had been deposited there for later casting and reuse, as has been the case throughout history: melting bronze objects to make new pieces.
Pacheco explained that finding Hercules in the 1990s was “of maximum relevance” because until then many specialists who studied Roman Spain did not have him “on the map of Hispania.”
We now know that about 6,000 people lived in Caesarobriga, there were houses (domus) decorated with stuccoes and paintings and equipped with hydraulic infrastructures, and it had a thermal complex with a heated area, rooms for religious worship and a late-Roman wall.
In addition, it had the advantage of its strategic location in the Tagus valley, on the eastern border of the provinces of Lusitania and Carthaginensis, and was well connected with Toletum and Emerita Augusta. Caesarobriga had the category of municipium, with which its inhabitants could be considered Roman citizens, and it minted its own currency.
THAT WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1996
César Pacheco and Alberto Moraleda were in a “boring” moment of the morning. The workers were excavating and found themselves, approximately, at the archaeological level of the 4th century, in a room delimited by walls and earth fill.
“At one point we looked down and saw something that looked like a face, a face. We went down to the survey, which was about two meters from the surface, we cleaned it and we realized that it was indeed a sculpture, and when we saw it complete we saw that it was a Hercules”, Pacheco recalled.
They went to look for a video camera to record the discovery (the images are also reproduced in the ‘Hercules in Talavera’ exhibition), they cleaned the area and very close, less than 20 centimeters away, they found a fragment of a left leg with a foot (from knee down) shod with a sandal, also of bronze.
This leg, life-size and possibly a female sculpture, is in the process of being restored and cleaned at the Ruiz de Luna Museum in Talavera.
“First it was expectation but also perplexity, because you don’t expect to find a sculpture of this caliber. We knew that there was significant Roman potential, but we did not expect to find a sculpture, let alone a bronze one. It was a joy. I was joking a lot ”, she pointed out with a wide smile.
The archaeologist, writer and film director César Pacheco (Talavera, 1964) is a person known for his cultural commitment to his city. This coming Wednesday he will give a lecture at the Museum on the history of Roman archaeological research in Talavera, within the cycle organized with the exhibition ‘Hercules in Talavera. The return of a hero’. EFE