From this time, which was a little before the 144th Olympiad [206 BC], the Romans began to send prætors to Spain yearly to the conquered nations as governors or superintendents to keep the peace. Scipio left them a small force suitable for a peace establishment, and settled his sick and wounded soldiers in a town which he named Italica after Italy: this was the native place of Trajan and Hadrian, who afterwards became emperors of Rome.

Italica was the first Roman settlement in Spain and the first Roman city outside of Italy.[1] It was founded in 206 BC by Publius Cornelius Scipio during the Second Carthaginian War close to a native Iberian town of the Turdetani (dating back at least to the 4th c. BC) as a settlement for his Italic veterans, likely a majority of socii and a minority of Roman citizens, and named Italica after its inhabitants.[2] The nearby native and Roman city of Hispalis (Seville) was and would remain a larger city, but Italica's importance derived from its illustrious origin and from the fact that it was close enough to the Guadalquivir to control the area.[3]

 

Statue of Trajan

The vetus urbs (original or "old" city) developed into a prosperous city and was built on a Hippodamian street plan[4][5] with public buildings and a forum at the centre, linked to a busy river port. Italica thrived especially under the patronage of Hadrian, like many other cities in the empire under his influence at this time, but it was especially favoured as his birthplace. He expanded the city northwards as the nova urbs (new city) and, upon its request, elevated it to the status of colonia as Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica even though Hadrian expressed his surprise as it already enjoyed the rights of "Municipium".[6] He also added temples, including the enormous and unique Traianeum in the centre of the city to venerate his predecessor and adopted father, and rebuilt public buildings.

The city started to dwindle as early as the 3rd century when a shift of the Guadalquivir River bed, probably due to siltation, a widespread problem in antiquity that followed removal of the forest cover, left Italica's river port high and dry while Hispalis continued to grow nearby.

The city may have been the birthplace of the emperor Theodosius I[7] and of his eldest son Arcadius (born in Spain in 377 A.D., during his father's exile).[8]

Italica was important enough in late Antiquity to have a bishop of its own, and had a garrison during the Visigothic age. The walls were restored by Leovigildo in 583 AD during his struggles against Hermenegildo.[9]