Ethnic Identity and Urban Fabric

The Case of the Greeks at Empúries, Spain

Abstract

Between 200 and 150 BC, several major construction projects significantly altered the appearance of the Greek sector of the site of Empúries in the Catalonian region of Spain. These changes have been interpreted as a sign of the growing prosperity of Greeks at the site after the Roman conquest of the eastern Iberian Peninsula. The author challenges this view, citing evidence that the Greek residents of the city did not prosper from the Roman invasion but, instead, lost political and economic status in the region. As an alternative explanation, it is argued that the alterations to the urban fabric witnessed in the first half of the second century bc were a conscious assertion of ethnic identity and that the Greeks at the site were attempting to create a strong group identity, symbolized by specific types of architecture, to help them negotiate their changing roles in the northeastern Iberian peninsula.