THE SEVENTH-CENTURY KINGDOM 89city was also enriched by the restoration of some of its earlier secular
buildings. The amphitheatre was repaired and used for a naval display
to celebrate the accession of the emperor Constantine II (337-340).
The hippodrome, which enjoyed a much greater vogue in the Later
than in the Early Empire for political as well as sporting purposes,
may have been built or restored at this time. Some very fine private
villas also appear to have been erected in this period, one of which
contains the finest Roman mosaic yet discovered in Spain, possibly a
product of the fourth century and related to contemporary North
African work. This villa might prove to have been an official re-sidence,
such as that of the governor of the newly created province of Lusitania,
which together with Baetica replaced the older and larger unit of
'Hispania Ulterior' in the reign of Septimius Severus (193-210).4
Merida may not have suffered much in the fifth century, for there
are no references to its ever having been sacked, and it was the
residence of the Suevic and then Visigothic kings for nearly a decade.
An inscription survives from the year 483, recording the repair of the
Roman bridge over the river Guadiana by the Visigothic count at the
request of the Catholic bishop. A mosaic has also survived from this
period depicting Bacchus; it seems to have been made locally and
bears the name of a workshop, indicating that the manufacture of
such luxury items continued, although aesthetic standards or the
quality of craftsmanship may have declined.^5
Continuity from classical antiquity into the sixth century is strik-
ingly recorded in Merida. Of course, it had been a thoroughly Roman
city, an important administrative centre and fortunate in its fate in
both the third and fifth centuries, but the experience of other major
Roman cities of Spain, especially in the south and the east, may not
have been dissimilar. Ultimately only archaeology may be able to tell.
Obviously Galicia, Cantabria and northern Lusitania, where urban
development was small and the degree of Roman cultural penetra-
tion limited, whilst the amount of fighting and destruction recorded
in those areas in the fifth century was considerable, will have pre-
sented a very different picture. However, in Visigothic Spain the el-
ements of physical continuity with antiquity were greater than is often
appreciated. Thus the very distinctive Meridan style of sculpture of
the sixth and seventh centuries, which seems to have spread to other
parts of western Baetica and southern Lusitania, appears to owe some-
thing to the conscious imitation of the models of the earlier Roman
past, many examples of which will still have been visible in the city,