A little over 2,000 years ago, when the Romans founded what is now Barcelona, the city prospered quickly, especially thanks to the export of wine from the area. However, from our current point of view it could hardly be called a Barcino city, with a population of just over two thousand souls. And what he exported could not be called wine either, if credit is given to Marcial when he called it "the port of Laietania". Of course, without going into its characteristics, another author of the time, Pliny the Elder, specified that the wine of the region had become "famous for its abundance". In short, a product of poor quality, but very abundant and, above all other considerations, a round business.
With this business and while the production reached very far points of the empire, the fortunes and influence of a handful of families grew, some of which even became important in Rome. The work of archaeologists, historians and specialists from various disciplines in recent decades has allowed us to know data about who these wealthy classes of the original Barcino were, how they lived and related to each other. At the same time, the research also shows the life, desires and sorrows of the population that was at the other end of the social scale. Remains of buildings, inscriptions and graves are part of the raw material from which scholars extract clues.
It is surprising that two millennia later the profile of characters so distant in time can be reconstructed, but some have been rescued from oblivion. One of them is a real celebrity on a Barcelona scale, Luci Licini Second, the most honored personality in the city. More than twenty inscriptions in his honor have been recovered in which people from the high society of Bàrcino pay tribute to him, thank him for favors or proclaim with more or less sincerity their friendship. Some research even locates the mansion of the influential Licini Segon on the current Carrer Avinyó, a sumptuous building of which only a very small part has been excavated.
Well, he could be one of Barcelona's first millionaires. But the most surprising thing is that Licinus Second was actually a freedman, a man born a slave, but who was freed by his owner. Although his influence in the city was enormous, like all freedmen he maintained certain servitudes with his former master and was not a full citizen.
And his former master was Luci, another one of those who would undoubtedly choose to enter this pantheon of millionaires. His family, like most of the great families of the first century of Bàrcino's life, had made a fortune thanks to the wine business that was produced in Laietania, a region that encompassed, more or less, areas such as Maresme, Barcelonès, part of Vallès or Garraf. The imprint of the Licinis is so persistent 2,000 years later that the historian Oriol Olesti points out that Lliçà, in the region of, very possibly took its name from the estate they had there, in the same way that the toponym Cornellà of a Corneli or Vallirana of a Valeri.
But the researchers believe that, in reality, Licini Sura did not spend much time in the city, because while his freedman looked after - and grew - his businesses, he remained in Tarragona or assaulted power in Rome. So much so that he became consul three times (at the end of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd century), was Trajan's lieutenant and could even be his successor, although the death of the emperor frustrated finally these plans.
The Minicis were another of the families that had members pursuing a political career in the capital. Luci Minici Natal Quadroni Ver (96-154) has gone down in history for having held numerous positions throughout the empire, for his proximity to Emperor Adrian and for reaching the consulate. Also for the quadriga races, which earned him an Olympic prize in Greece, although, in truth, he chose to hire a famous charioteer to compete on his behalf and take the physical risk. Today, a street in the Olympic Ring recognizes his merits – those of Quadronio Ver, not those of the charioteer.
Apparently, from the clues gathered by the investigators, he felt very committed to the city. In an inscription in which the scholar Marc Mayer observes a "detail of patriotic pride", Quadroni Ver emphasized having been born in the city and, together with his father, also a politician, bequeathed a significant amount to his neighbors. This is the first known case of a Barcelona native claiming his origins.
But, although it is often not explained, there was also enormous poverty in the Roman Empire. It is estimated that approximately 60 million people were under Rome's control in the Imperial Golden Age, but most of the information that has survived to this day concerns the few hundred thousand who made up the elite. On the other hand, very little is known about the remaining 59 million longs and the same thing happens on a local scale in Barcino. Some of the few data available come from tombstones.
One of these inscriptions, found in the necropolis in Plaça Vila de Madrid, was commissioned by a certain Marc Porci Privat for his sister Salviana. According to archaeologist Isabel Rodà, the poor quality of the plaque reveals that that family could only afford a low-level workshop. Salviana, then, was poor; however, his relatives wanted to face the expense of the burial, an issue that was quite important in Roman culture.
The funerary complex in Plaça Vila de Madrid has provided a lot of information to experts. For example, about their resources (some had to make do with a collective grave because they couldn't afford an individual one), their food (with evidence of infant mortality and malnutrition) or their work (with samples of bone wear justified by the hardness of the tasks).
But in the Roman world class was not an entirely immutable reality, because there was a social elevator, albeit a rancid and conditioned one. The freedmen constituted the most obvious cases of this ascent, since many times, despite having been born under slavery, they could end up reaching high levels of influence and even their descendants could hold political positions.
An inscription commissioned by the freedman Gai Publici Melisi, for example, pays tribute to his dead son, Gai Juli Silva, who, despite being only 18 years old, had come to hold public office in the city. For the researchers, this tombstone is a sign of both a family's social rise and a father's pride in his missing son.
Barcelona then, like today, was a magnet for many people in search of new opportunities. For example, from another tombstone it is known that a certain Cornelius Segon emigrated from North Africa to Barcino accompanied by his family, in a journey reminiscent of what thousands of people do today. Second, of humble extraction, not only integrated but prospered in the city, as is shown by the fact that the inscription pays tribute to a lost son who, as in the previous case, had come to have a municipal office.
The similarities between the city of today and that of yesterday are sometimes surprising. The integration between the urban core and the territory that surrounds it or its role as a focus of attraction for people from outside demonstrate this. However, notot are similarities. If a Barcelona resident today had a time machine to travel 2,000 years back, the cultural, social and visual shock would be of historic proportions.
