Emporion.

It was an ancient Greek and Roman colony at the southern end of the Gulf of Roses (Catalonia), in the present municipality of the Scale and south of San Martin de Ampurias. It extends from the ancient gorge of the Fluvia river until Ter River, which flows into the Playa del Riego del Molino, at Scale. Currently the land is owned by the Government of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and are part of an archaeological park. In the complex there is the old Convent of St. Mary of Gracia, rebuilt in 1910 AD.

The city, partially excavated, can be divided into 4 located parts around a natural harbor, the first Greek city (situated on a small island called Paliapolis), the Greek city located on land (called Neapolis), the Roman city and the Iberian city (Indika).

The town was fortified in the center of this are the agora (the main square). The streets were irregular and were adapted to natural uneven terrain. Beside the agora was a Stoa (building for commercial transactions). The city had several temples dedicated to Zeus, Serapis and Asclepius.

The Roman city was surrounded by a wall of concrete (formwork made from lime on 2 giant stones). Had a great forum, with several temples and shops and a Grandos public restrooms. Just outside the city wall there was an amphitheater and a gym. In the south of the city found several areas of industrial, related to metallurgy.

From the ninth century BC, at the end of the Bronze Age, the indigenous people of this region of Catalonia lived in the hills jutting wetlands. One of these villages was in the area that is now Saint Martin de Ampurias.

In the seventh century BC, the town already had trade relations with the Etruscans, Phoenicians and Greeks, circa 580 BC, Greek merchants of Marseilles, founded Emporion on the hill of Saint Martín, and by mid-fourth century BC occupied the mainland (Neapolis). Initially, the city depended Marseille but, around 500 BC, the city was already independent. The city, surrounded by a wall and an inner wall that separated the Greek city and the Iberian city, was developed by a business which covered the entire Mediterranean. His influence on indigenous gave rise to the Iberian culture.

In 218 BC, during the Second Punic War, landed a Roman army commanded by Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, with the aim of cutting the rear, toward the Carthaginian army of Hannibal. With this fact the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula began.

In the year 197 BC, during the Great Indian Revolt, Indigenous city remained neutral. That same year, Cato the "Censor", set up camp and made it the center for fighting the Iberian resistance to the occupation. The military camp was transformed into a Roman city in the first century BC. At the time of Emperor Augustus, the Greek and Roman cities were united under the name of Municipium Emporiae. As other Roman cities were becoming important as Barcino, Gerunda or Tarraco, Emporion was losing its splendor.

A half century III AD, both Neapolis as the Roman city were already abandoned and the population is concentrated in Saint Martin de Ampurias, who was bishop during the Visigoth period (Diocese of Ampurias). The Neapolis was used as a cemetery, and a basilica was built.

After the Muslim conquest, came the Carolingian conquest in the eighth century AD and, under the rule of the Franks, the city was the capital of the County of Empúries. In 859 AD, the city was sacked by a Norman expedition and this was the reason for its ruin and destroyed by Muslims during a raffia, the Count moved the capital to another city. Since then, Emporion was a small fishing village in the sixteenth century, founded the population of the scale.

The Temple of Aesculapius.

By the second century BC several religious buildings that could be identified with a Asklepeion were built. This was a therapeutic and religious center dedicated to Aesculapius.

The exhibition consisted of three temples, near cisterns, a well and a fortified building: a building where patients experienced the sacred dream from which priests and religious established therapeutic treatment, dedicated to the god Asclepius. As regards the tanks, was where the necessary water is stored to perform purification rituals to which the patient was subjected. The open pit contained the sacred snakes.

The temple of Serapis.

In the third century BC, the inhabitants of the city decided to build a fortified place. Later, during the first half of the first century BC, it was transformed to be built in it a Doric temple dedicated to the god Serapis. The existence of this temple we know the importance it had in Emporion, during the Republican and Hellenistic periods, cults from the Eastern Mediterranean, probably by the arrival of traders from the East who took the existence of a port city outward, to settle and form a commercial and cultural empire of great influence.

The Necropolis.

The necropolis of this city has more than 1000 years old in a long period that goes from the seventh century BC to the Middle Ages. In the complex there are 4 types of necropolis: Greco-indigenous, Republican necropolis, the necropolis of high empire and the necropolis of the Lower Empire.