Aragon Guide

Caesaraugusta was surrounded by a wall with numerous towers, perhaps as many as 120. The walls were extremely thick, up to 7 metres in places, whit alabaster and limestone block exteriors and an extraordinarily hard mortar interior (opus caementicium). Its towers were semicircular or ultra-semicircular with a diameter of some 8 metres, and 13 metres in one of the towers flanking the West Gate-

The Roman walls had a perimeter of 3 km and followed the Calle Echegaray y Caballero, all the Coso and the Avenida Cesar Augusto. The city had four gates, situated at each of its ends: the North Gate at the entrance to the Puente de Piedra, the East Gate next to the Church of the Magdalena, the South Gate just east of the Teatro Principal and the west Gate at the end of the calle Manifestacion. From the Middle Ages onwards, the North Gate was known as the Angel Gate, the East Gate the Valencia Gate and the West Gate, the Toledo Gate. In Moslem times, access to the city from the south was by the Ciniega Gate, at the entrance to the Tubo, somewhat to the west of the Roman gate.

Remains of the wall have been found at 36 points along its length. Some are in ruins, others are buried beneath the streets, and 12 may be visited. The two most spectacular on view are the San Juan de los Panetes section, in the Avenida Cesar Augusto, and the Canonesas del Santo Sepulcro section in the calle Echegaray y Caballero. Recently, archaeologists have discovered numerous traces of the wall, and worthy of note are those on the corner of Calle Echegaray and Calle Coso, and next to the Zuda Tower.

We know that this wall was built in the second half of the 3rd century. However, recent research seems to suggest that there was a wall round Caesaraugusta from the time of its foundation, shortly before the Christian era, even if it was not the wall that we can see today.

The wall around Zaragoza served its fundamental purpose more in the Medieval than in the Roman era. At times, it defended the city, and many other times it deterred enemies from attacking it, but it also afforded enough security to its inhabitants and rulers to face up to the central power of Toledo and Cordoba in the Visigothic and Moslem periods. It was in the 14th century, with the War of the Pedro’s (1356-1369), that Zaragoza last had to make use of its stone wall. From that moment on, the expansion of the city rendered it unnecessary, and it was gradually dismantied from the 15th century onwards.

For some years now, beside the San Juan de los Panetes section of the wall, is to be found the statue of the Emperor Augustus, a copy of the famous Prima Porta Augustus, a gift to the city from the Italian Government in the 1940s. The figure is situated opposite three flat arches and one semicircular arch evoking the earlier Toledo Gate, representing the four cultures that have named the city: Salduie, Caesaraugusta, Saraqusta and Zaragoza.

Address: Avenida de Cesar Augusto