Time Travel

There is a tiny village just west of the city of Lugo called Santa Eulalia de Bóveda. We visited once just to see the Roman temple. We visited years ago, in mid-spring. I remember parking our car in a little plaza. We were the only ones there. A sign with visiting hours told us to ask for someone to open the temple. When they did and we entered, it was like finding a moldery corner of the underworld. You have to walk down to the door, so the temple is half buried. Time has grown around it. Inside, the bottom of the walls are green, testimony to our climate. There are worn columns that no longer support anything, and frescos on the upper walls. In the middle there is a low area that looks like it may have been a pool. At the back there's a recess where stairs originally led to an upper floor, now totally reconstructed as a church. 

It dates from the third century C.E. and is unique in all the ancient provinces of the Roman Empire. For many years it was thought to have been a temple dedicated to the goddess Cybele. Though that certainty was never established. Now, a Spanish historian has just presented his thesis of over a thousand pages, where he alleges that the temple ia a funerary monument dedicated to a follower of Dionysius. That, at least, is what a newspaper article mentioned yesterday. That would make it less unique, as such funerary temples have been found in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area. Though it would still be the only one in Spain, and is still different from those others. 

It can be amazing what ancient ruins you can find in the remotest corners of this region. Generally, they are not grandiose, like the amphitheater at Mérida. Still, the Roman walls of Lugo are grandiose enough, especially as they are part of city life now. But it's when you trip over ancient remains that you're surprised, and reminded of how far the Empire reached. 

One thing many will find, are Roman bridges. Most of them have been remodelled in the thousand years since they were built, but they're still there. Legions no longer cross them. Some are almost in ruins. There is an area near here, in Pobra do Caramiñal, where you can walk along a river up to an abandoned hermitage in the woods. The walk, along paths and unpaved lanes, begins at a village called Aldea Vella, which was last inhabited maybe twenty or

thirty years ago. A few houses are still in good repair, but many are falling into ruin, including the mills down at the river. From there you walk along the river, until you come to a place where, in areas, it seems like someone once laid down paving stones at irregular intervals. The path ends at a bridge and the few walls of the hermitage. The path is the remains of a Roman road, and the bridge was originally Roman. It's a little bit strange to stand on it and imagine people almost a thousand years ago crossing the bridge and continuing down the road. That was once a well-travelled road. Now it's a path for the adventurous person and goats and rabbits. Maybe the occasional fox or two. The area is now overgrown with eucaliptus. Back then it was probably surrounded by oaks and beeches, with the area around the road well-cleared to keep travellers safe from any ambush. 

Scratch a little here and the history you studied in school will probably end up staring you in the face.