The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-10
MERIDA THE ROME OF SPAIN
EMERIIA AUGUSTA, FOUNDED B.
 c. 23.

Border.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journa
 and Courier)
 Merida, Spain, April 8-It seemed 6
 halr-brained undertaking-thi wide de-
 tour from customary travel. across Els
 tramadura's dusty and desolate plains
 to the very border of Portugal but we
 have found ample recompense in mere
 ly walking the streets of city whose
 foundations were laid quarter of a
 century before Christ was born
 Though this remote and forgotten town
 cuts no figure in modern history, Span
 iards cherish it, with pardonable pride
 as the Rome of the Peninsula" for it
 contains more relics of the early Ro-
 mans than even the Eternal City of Ita
 ly Indeed, the whole province of Els
 tramadura, poverty stricken as it now
 appears, is richer in monuments of an-
 tiquity than any other equal area on
 the face of the globe.
 Before coming this way it will be well to freshen your memory bit on classi-
 cal history. The Medina of to-day is the self-same Roman capital of Lusita- mia which Legate Publius Carisus built B. c. 23, and chriStened Emerita Angus ta. Its magnificence continued undi- unfinished down to the fourth century af-
 ter Christ. Thirty-six different Roman coins were struck here which are now among the rarest and most valuable in the world existing only in the cabinets of wealthy collectors. Most of the worn discs of silver and copper, for which fabulous urices are paid, bear the an- cient arms of the city (which are still the arms of Medina)-a turreted gate, with the inscription Augusta Emerita Prudentus described the splendors Of this old capital in stately measure in his hymn on the death of its patroness, Flu la1ia, who by the way is not to be con founded with her namesake, the tutelar of Barcelona, nor yet with the blonde haired member of Spain's royal family who visited us few years ago. Meri- das Eulalia was born here A. D. 292. and was one off the earliest female martyrs in Spain. History is silent as to the cause of her martyrdom and the tortures by which she died. Though only twelve years old when put to death, she performed miracles in after centuries worthy of any grown-up saint. San Isidoro relates that, in the year 491, she saved the city from being plundered by Theodorcus, the Goth, by threatening him with the punishment that Ceres visited upon Alexander's troop at Miletus.
 The sights" of Merida are many. and of surpassing interest to the archaeolo- gist. Most of them were projected dur ing the happy reign of Trajan--that en- frightened prince who loved to beautify and ennoble the land of his birth The walls of the city, once twenty miles in circumference, antedate Trajan's day, and so does one of the bridges-that crossing the Guidiana, on whose right bank rises Merida. It is about half q mile long with eighty-one arches, thir- ty feet broad and thirty-fve feet above the water. Being so long and flat 1t has the appearance of a causeway, gray and solemn, yet stately in its decay. It would be hazardous to attempt cross ing now; yet you venture out co1sid- erable distance upon the crumbling structure, thinking of the countless null titudes that have passed to and fro since its completion in the first century--until the broken footway with the deep still rived far below, gives you sensations which are likely to haunt your dreams unpleasantly for nights to come
 The other ancient bridge spans. a smaller stream on the opposite side of the city and is worthy monument to Trajan, its/builder. It was repaired in the year S6 by one of the Gothic dukes of Toledo; and again in 1610 by Philip III, as an inscription on it's portco an- A tic and historic, cling to these old old bridges. In 1908 gallant band of Frenchmen, only eight hundred strong, kept the whole Spanish army at bay for 8 month by holding the oldest bridge, although the river is fordable at that point Four years later, during the eeige of Badajoz, several arches of the other bridge were purposely destroyed in order to impede Marmout's advance They were afterwards replaced, to match the structure, as nearly as pos eibe of solid granite, with bossage- work, "pilowed," or almohadillado as the Spaniards say. On an island in the Guadiana, little way up stream, is a Roman dyke, known as El Tajamar, built of massive masonry and intended to protect the arches of the bridge be- low from intimidation. The dyke may have been effective ip its prime but every recent inundation, caused by melting snows of the mountains swell | Ing the river, has wrought irreparable | damage to the tottering structure, l which must soon disappear altogether. ,l
 To the right of Trajans bridge is a | castle, built by the Romans and added l to by the Moors. In later years it | served as a palace for the bishops of | Merida; and afterwards it was occupied | by the Knights Templar, whence came It's present name, "El Conventual," At | the suppression of the Templars in | Spain the castle was granted to the Catholic order of Santiago, whose pro- visor made it his residence. Little is left of it except a splendid court of granite pillars, the vestiges of a temple, 3 square tank that once served in some mystic rite and some 6 series of ancient baths, the rest of the great pile having been gt1tted by the French
 A tall, gaunt gateway, standing by it. self near the river, looks old as the old sst monument in existence; but 1t is ev- 1 dently of comparatively recent origin IS its marble tablet bears an Arabic in- 'cription. The triumpha arch of Ira an, forty four feet high-though now mere shell having been stripped of its marble casing by the invaders-towers in a dingy back street |