Researchers from the UAB have found the remains of a Roman camp linked to the suppression of the Ceretani revolt which took place in Cerdanya in 39 BCE. The research, based on archaeological survey and the spatial distribution of recovered materials, provides new evidence placing these violent events within the ancestral territory of the Ceretani. The discovery contributes to redefining the historical interpretation of the Roman conquest of Catalonia, representing what appears to be the last known military episode of the conflict.
The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was neither a brief nor a peaceful process. In the case of the land that is now Catalonia, nearly two centuries after the Romans arrived at Emporion in 218 BCE, the Ceretani—originally from Cerdanya—remained a source of resistance. Around 39 BCE, the historian Cassius Dio records a Ceratani revolt against Roman troops, who fell into an ambush and were forced to retreat. The governor of Hispania Citerior, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, punished his soldiers for fleeing and subsequently suppressed the Ceretani uprising swiftly and decisively.
As part of the four-year project Landscape and Territory in Ancient Cerdanya-3 (Paisatge i Territori a la Cerdanya Antiga-3 , PATCA), in April 2024 a UAB team made up of Oriol Olesti, Joan Oller, Jordi Morera and several local researchers conducted a systematic survey in the wooded area overlooking the route at Collet de Jovell (Urús, Cerdanya). The intervention led to the recovery of a collection of highly significant archaeological materials. All the objects found were inventoried, marked with identification codes, and spatially located using GPS, enabling their subsequent integration into a cartographic database (GIS).
The cartographic database of the elements found.
The recovered materials—including both clavi caligae (iron studs from Roman legionary sandals) and other militaria (sling bullets, fibulae, coins, etc.)—date the site to the second half of the 1st century BCE. However, the discovery of two inscribed sling bullets has allowed for much more precise dating. Researchers identify the inscription preserved on two of these bullets—CN(eus) D(omitius)—with Gn. Domitius Calvinus, Augustus's representative in the province of Hispania Citerior in 39 BCE and commander of the troops that fought against the Ceretani. The team's main hypothesis is that the site corresponds to a Roman military camp linked to the fighting during that episode, situated at a strategic point of access to the Cerdanya plain.
Roman sling bullets bearing the signature of Governor Domitius Calvinus found at the Collet de Jovell archaeological site.
Until now, this revolt had traditionally been located in a more western area of the Pyrenees. However, the identification of the Collet de Jovell site places these events back within the original territory of the Ceretani—a region extensively documented through the work carried out by the PATCA team over the past twenty-five years. This represents, therefore, the last known episode of conflict between the indigenous peoples of what is now Catalonia and Roman troops—a conflict that ended with the widespread abandonment of Ceretani settlements, which fell victim to a harsh repression that dismantled indigenous structures.
