Sagunto (
Valencian Sagunt;
Latin Saguntum), formerly
Murviedro (Valencian
Morvedre), is an ancient city in Eastern
Spain, in the modern fertile district of
Camp de Morvedre in the
province of Valencia. It is located in a hilly site, c. 30 km north of
Valencia, close to the
Costa del Azahar on the
Mediterranean Sea.
During the 5th century BC, the Celtiberians built a walled settlement on the hill overseeing the plain; a stretch of cyclopean limestone slabs from the former temple of Diana survives, close to the modern church of Santa Maria, but the settlement site is still older. The city traded with Greek and Phoenician coastal colonies, and under their influence, minted its own coins. During this period the city was known as Arse (Ripollès i Alegre 2002). By 219 BC Saguntum was a large and commercially prosperous town, which sided with the local Greek colonists and Rome against Carthage, and drew Hannibal's first assault, his siege of Saguntum, the opening move of the Second Punic War. After a harsh resistance of several months, related by the Roman historian Livy, Saguntum was captured in 219 by the armies of Hannibal.
Hispania was not meekly pacified and Romanized, as the Iberian career of Quintus Sertorius makes clear. Saguntum minted coins under his protection, and continued to house a mint when, as Roman Saguntum, it was rebuilt and flourished with the rank of municipium. This later prosperity lasted most of the empire through, and is attested by inscriptions and ruins (notably a theater, demolished by Napoleon's marshal Louis Gabriel Suchet, who also destroyed the Roman tower of Hercules). With the Arian Visigothic kings, Saguntum received its Catholic patron saint, a bishop named Sacerdos, "the priest", who died peacefully of natural causes about AD 560.
In the early eighth century the Muslim Arabs came and the city became part of the Caliphate of Cordoba and at that time the city reached an era of splendor, with baths, palaces, mosques and schools open for its cosmopolitan population. Then, the town was known as Morvedre (Morviedro in Spanish), a word derived from Latin muri veteres "ancient walls." However, as Valencia grew, Saguntum declined.
