VAULT OF THE TECLETA, CLOSED FOR WORKS UNTIL NOVEMBER

The Provincial Forum was built in the upper part of the city in about 73 AD, during the period of the Emperor Vespasian. It was from here that the political and economic life of the province was administered. The governing body of the new administrative network was the Consilium Provinciae Hispaniae Citerioris (Provincial Council) in which the governor played an active role.

The place chosen to set up the administrative buildings was the upper part of the city on an area of some 7.5 hectares on land which had belonged to the state since the city was founded.

The Provincial Forum was spread over two terraces that took advantage of the slope of the land. The upper terrace contained the imperial worship area and the lower, the so-called Plaza of Representation. Some years later, the Circus was built on a third terrace, thus completing the monumental complex.

The Plaza of Representation was the complex of buildings from which the whole province was administered. Here you would have found the tabularium (the state archives) and the arca (the state treasury). A series of lateral towers was built to provide entrance stairways to the buildings. The provincial complex was articulated unitarily on a symmetrical axis that, in a northwest/southeast direction, linked the temple of imperial worship, at the highest part, with the Circus pulvinars, via a processional route that crossed the middle terrace longways. A series of statues was placed on either side of this route, although only the pedestals have been preserved. A study of the inscriptions shows that the majority of the statues were dedicated to the Imperial flamines (the priests in charge of the Imperial cult) after they had served their year in the post. The Provincial Forum ceased to function structurally at the beginning of the 5th century. After this time, the administration was reduced to a much smaller area about which, at present, we have no knowledge. Over the following centuries, the high imperial buildings were gradually dismantled and the stones were used on other civil and religious buildings of late-Roman and medieval Tarraco.