Valeria, Spain (Roman City)
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The Roman city
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 Shown within Spain
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| Location | Spain |
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| Region | Castile–La Mancha |
| Coordinates | 39°48′30″N 2°09′01″W / 39.8083°N 2.1503°W |
Valeria was an important Roman city and one of the three major cities (with Segobriga and Ercavica) in the modern province of Cuenca.
Its impressive ruins are located on an spectacular site near the modern town of Valeria (Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha).
Valeria was founded on land conquered from the celtiberians, between 93 and 82 BC when Valerius Flaccus became proconsul of Hispania Citerior, since when it has preserved the name that refers to its founder.
Valeria is located on a tongue of land between limestone gorges at an altitude of a 1000 metres.
Excavation began in the 1950s, but more scientifically since 1974. Since then, systematic excavations have focussed primarily on the space occupied by the forum as well as on private villas.
The major urban development of Valeria dates to the 1st century AD, when construction of the forum was undertaken. The centre of the site comprises a series of public buildings around an immense square platform in the centre of which the forum stood. It is one of the most complete Roman fora situated on a platform. Built into the platform are cisterns to store rainwater collected from above.
The Basilica is located to the north side of the forum while on the west side are the Exedra (Hall of the imperial cult) and Cryptoporticus, a vaulted underground gallery functioning as a street or storerooms that also served as foundation to the floor of the Exedra and which occupies the whole side of the platform from the Basilica to the southern limit of the Forum. To the south lies a monumental staircase to the forum, a series of shops and the most iconic building of Valeria, the Nymphaeum, over 100 metres long. The ensemble is bounded by streets. The extent and status of the remains indicate that it was a Municipium.
On the east side of the forum lies this very original fountain building dedicated to the nymphs and rivers. It is very large at over 105m long of which more than 80 belong to the fountain proper. This makes it one of the largest known throughout the Roman Empire and, of course, the largest in Hispania. The Nymphaeum did not perhaps figure in the first, late-republican, forum and was perhaps devised when forum was raised in level in the remodelling of the first century AD in the Claudius era. It is, however, a very old example since its construction must date from the early years of the 1st c. AD, and therefore well before the great nymphaea of Africa (2nd c. AD) so that Valeria is closer to the older Hellenistic types.
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Wikipedia