Complutum

It has been partially excavated and the impressive remains can be seen today at the Complutum archaeological site south west of the current city, about a kilometre from the medieval centre.[1] The town grew up at a favourable site near the junction of several communication routes and near natural resources, such as the Henares river and the arable meadows around it.[4] It became the main urban centre and capital of a vast political territory, covering most of the current region of Madrid and Guadalajara.During the Diocletian persecutions (r. 284–305) two young brothers (Justus was 13 years old, Pastor less than 9) were killed as Christian martyrs and are today the patron saints of Alcalá.[9] The decumanus maximus is the most important street, because it was the road from Emerita Augusta (Mérida) and Toletum (Toledo) to CaesarAugusta (Zaragoza).Beside the road at the western gate was a fountain where nymphs and the goddess Diana were venerated, known today as Fuente del Juncal.At the southern end of the cardo maximus, on the banks of the Henares, another spring performed a similar function, the so-called de la Salud, in what was then a small river port.A monumental façade adorned the forum, a high stone wall with large columns imitating the stage fronts of a theatre, covered in marble, topped with sculptures, and in the central opening a poetic inscription, a Carmen Epigraphicum (based on Virgil's Aeneid) that commemorated the renovation of the forum at the end of the 3rd century.Their layout was of a simpler linear provincial type with a succession of four heated environments: first, facing north, the apodyterium (changing room), second the frigidarium with a cold pool, then the tepidarium and finally the caldarium to make the most of the sun.The main hall had two offering wells and six small sacrifice reservoirs, each containing a ceramic jug and remains of one or more sacrificial animals (mostly chicken).The work is signed by Hippolytus, a master mosaicist of possibly North African origin (present-day Tunisia is the most feasible place) and was made for one of the most important families in the city.