Roman Valentia
Valencia is one of the oldest cities in Spain, founded in the Roman period under the name "Valentia Edetanorum" on the site of a formerIberian town, by the river Turia in the province of Edetania.
About two thousand Roman colonists were settled there in 138 BC during the rule of consul Decimus Junius Brutus Galaico. The Roman historian Florus says that Brutus transferred the soldiers who had fought under him to that province. This was a typically Roman city in its conception, as it was located in a strategic location near the sea on a river island crossed by the Via Augusta, the imperial road which connected the province to Rome, the capital of the empire. The centre of the city was located in the present-day neighbourhood of the Plaza de la Virgen; here was the forum and the crossing of the Cardo Maximus and the Decumanus Maximus, streets which are still the two main axes of the city. The Cardo corresponds to the existing Calle de Salvador- Almoina and the Decumanus to Calle de los Caballeros.
Pompey razed Valentia to the ground in 75 BC as punishment for its adherence to Sertorius, but it was rebuilt around fifty years later, including large infrastructure projects, and by the mid-first century was experiencing rapid urban growth. Pomponius Mela says it was one of the principal cities of Tarraconensisprovince. Valencia suffered a new period of decline in the third century, but an early Christian community arose there during the latter years of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Middle Ages
Visigothic Period
A few centuries later, coinciding with the first waves of the invading Germanic peoples (Suevi, Vandals and Alans, and later theVisigoths) and the power vacuum left by the demise of the Roman imperial administration, the church assumed the reins of power in
