The archaeological research of recent years in many Roman cities of ancient Hispania is revealing that the scenographic and monumental model city that Rome spread throughout the provinces lasted, in reality, a short time. Subjected to a fiscal pressure and to very strong demands of expense many Hispanic-Roman communities barely functioned in a regulated way and maintained institutions and even population until the beginning of the third century A.D., having begun, with some exceptions, a slow process of languishing.

The very clear confirmation of this phenomenon in the excavations that, since 2009, the Uncastillo Foundation has been developing in the Roman city of Los Bañales (Uncastillo, Zaragoza), project with which the University of Navarra collaborates, has led the scientific team that manages the site, led by Javier Andreu, professor of the School of Philosophy and Letters of that academic center, to call a colloquium in Uncastillo, scheduled for September 24 to 26, on this issue. A dozen speakers from Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal will participate in sessions to be held in Uncastillo, Layana and Ejea de los Caballeros, who will try to deepen in which were the reasons for the non-sustainability of the Roman model as a provincial city. The experts who will be visiting Cinco Villas during these days -in a colloquium to which students from the University of Navarra and the UNED of Tudelahave also registered-will try to find alternative explanations to this very current issue.

The talk portico to this II colloquium of Archaeology and Ancient History was given by Javier Andreu last Saturday, September 19 at the auditorium of the Uncastillo Foundation in the framework of the IV Roman sample Los Atilios organized for several years by the association of Women Muskaria of Sádaba, in which a good issue of people participated. In it, Andreu emphasized how the very hard demands of the Roman municipal model together with an economic crisis and a very strong climatic change witnessed after the death of framework Aurelio, around 180 A.D., accelerated the ruin of the urban model in the Latin West.

The celebration of this activity is possible thanks to the partnership of the Centro de programs of study de las Cinco Villas, Civitur, the Aquagraria Foundation and the ACS Foundation.