Back to the Future

            Entering the Museu d’Història de la Ciutat in Barcelona felt more like Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 film, Back to the Future, than a school field trip. Boarding the elevator inside the museum in the year 2011 and watching time fly back to the 1^st century BC as we descended to the old Roman ruins of the city was a humbling event. Resting a story or two below the modern bustling streets of Barcelona around the Cathedral and Placa del Rei, the rumored location of Ferdinand and Isabelle’s reception of Christopher Columbus, now lays the remains of the once bustling streets of the Roman city of Barcino, or rather Colonia Iulia Augusta Paterna Faventia Barcino. The old roman city was founded in 10 BC by the Emperor Augustus, hence the original roman name for the city. While Barcelona today stands as one the world’s most famous cities, back in the time of the Romans, it was a distant second to the Roman capital and port of Tarraco, current day Tarragona.

            Never the less, the remains of the roman city of Barcino on display beneath the museum gave us a glimpse of what life was like for the Romans. Surprisingly, society for them was not all that different from society today. On preserved display is a district of workshops and factories, including areas where clothes were washed and dyed. The large pits of the cetaria, used for salting fish and preparing fish sauce, garum, are still partially intact. Also on display are the old roman public baths used for bathing and teaching as well as a Church from the Visigoth period, around the 6^th century.

            But perhaps the most interesting part of the Museum were the displays of Children’s toys, trinkets, and tic-tac-toe boards, as well as women’s make up kits and jars. Such objects show you that while we live in a time very distant from the Romans, the structure and workings of society are not as distant. Today in Barcelona, The Government center, The Town Hall and the Parliament of Catalunya, as well as the religious center, all still stand in the same spot as it did for the Romans, in Placa St. Jaume. Children are still seen playing in the streets, although now more so with skateboards than tic-tac-toe boards. And women still parade into local beauty shops to buy their makeup. The large vats of garum have now been replaced by large vats of gelado. But all in all, the Roman city of Barcino does not seem to be all that different from the modern Catalan city of Barcelona.