Can you imagine the delight a Roman workman would feel if he was able to see his work still being admired in this day and age? The Romans left much evidence of their lifestyle behind – including baths, temples, bridges, roads, and statues, and some can be found in different parts of not only Portugal but everywhere they went. The Roman Empire spread far and wide in Europe, so it would be odd to not see evidence of this here in Portugal. The Roman Conquest of Portugal started in 219 BC and continued for almost two centuries. The ancient Iberian Roman province encompassed most of modern-day Portugal and a large portion of western Spain.

Conímbriga Ruins

The Conímbriga Ruins are probably the most famous Roman ruins in Portugal, just south of Coimbra. Conímbriga itself was inhabited and thriving long before the Romans arrived and apparently had around 10,000 inhabitants at its peak.


In around the 5th Century AD, despite newly built city walls, the town was invaded by German Suevi Tribes and was abandoned as the residents fled to what is now Coimbra. These tribes, after wiping out any remaining residents or taking them as slaves, set about razing the city to the ground, and the remains were left abandoned to weeds and dust. For the years the city sat sad and disused, and while many places fell into unrecognisable ruin, Conímbriga sat waiting to be rediscovered and is now one of the best Roman archaeological sites in Portugal.

The ruins are some 1,500 metres long, and was a walled settlement encircled by stones, now being one of the best-preserved sites in the Iberian Peninsula. One of the largest houses is said to be that of a nobleman and was an opulent villa boasting its own pools, a sophisticated heating system, and columnated gardens. Incredibly detailed mosaics are still visible all over the site, picturing beasts, hunting scenes, and mythological themes, and still intact are the remains of temples, a forum, an aqueduct, water pipes, drains, and a system for the heating of the city’s public and private bathrooms. Apparently, only a small percentage of the site has been excavated, but it’s the best site to understand what Roman Portugal was like.


The Roman Temple of Évora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Évora was an important town at the time, with the ruined temple being one of the most significant Roman landmarks in Portugal today. Fourteen Corinthian columns still stand, topped in places with Estremoz marble built on top of a granite podium, and these ruins are illuminated at night. Strangely, the temple was used as a slaughterhouse in the Middle Ages and is remarkably well-preserved.

Scattered across Portugal are other remains of the Romans – Braga has a beautiful museum, O Museu de Arqueologia D. Diogo de Sousa showcasing finds from the area, and Estói has ruins that were excavated in 1877 and are thought to be the remains of a Roman villa and bath complex. In Praia da Luz, Roman ruins were excavated not far from the beach, giving us an idea of the buildings that once existed there: a Roman bathhouse, mosaic floors and an industrial complex of fish salting tanks, located to the east of the bathhouse.

What will we leave behind?

Can you imagine what we might leave behind to be discovered in the future? Will concrete last thousands of years? Will people in the future laugh at the technology of today? It’s hard to predict, as in 60-odd years we went from flying for the first time to putting a man on the moon. Maybe what we leave behind hasn’t even been invented yet! Cities under the sea are a huge possibility, as the indigenous people of the Caribbean island of Gardj Sugdub, are now to become some of the first climate change refugees. Will the Netherlands disappear? Will the world as we know it be ruined by wars?

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying: ‘the future depends on what we do in the present’ – so should we start planning now?

Author

Marilyn writes regularly for The Portugal News, and has lived in the Algarve for some years. A dog-lover, she has lived in Ireland, UK, Bermuda and the Isle of Man. 

Marilyn Sheridan