Gerunda
GERUNDA(Γεροῦνδα, Ptol. 2.6.70: Eth. Gerundenses, Plin. Nat. 3.3. s. 4), a small inland town of the Ausetani, in the NE. corner of Hispania Tarraconensis, on the S. side of the river Alba (Ter), and on the high road from Tarraco to Narbo Martius. Under the Romans it was a civitas Latinorum, belonging to the conventus of Tarraco. It stood on a hill near Gerona. (Plin., Ptol., ll. cc.; Itin. Ant. p. 390; Tab. Peut.;Geog. Rav. 4.42; Prudent. Peisteph. 4.29, where it is called parva;Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 426.)
[P.S]Town in the province of Tarraconensis at the confluence of the Ter and the Onyar. Chief town of the Gerundenses who, according to Pliny (HN 3.23), had Latin rights. It was an oppidum of the Ausetani who controlled the defile of the Ter which separated them from the Indiketes and from Emporion's area of influence. Stretches of the pre-Roman cyclopean wall, which was strengthened during the Republican era, still survive; the wall of the Imperial age, rebuilt on the same perimeter, dates from the end of the 3d c. The town is on the main Roman road from Tarraco to Narbo and is mentioned in ancient sources (Ant.It. 390; Ptol. 2.6.9). Like all of Tarraconensis it was invaded by the Franks but, thanks to its fortifications, it subsequently acquired greater importance under the Late Empire (Rav. Cosm. 307.4; 341.13).
From an early time it had a large Christian community and was a bishopric (Martyr. Felix peristeph. 4.29). The Church of San Felix contains pagan and Christian sarcophagi. Roman villas outside the town have yielded the mosaic of Ball-lloch and others, now in the Barcelona and Gerona museums; the mosaic of Sarria de Ter is now being excavated. A local museum is being built, which contains prehistoric, Iberian, and Greek materials from Rosas and Ampurias, in addition to Roman remains.
BIBLIOGRAPHYComision de Monumentos de Gerona, El mosaico romano descubierto en la Torre de Ball-loch (1876); J. Martorell y Peña, Recintos fortificados (1881); E. Bonnet, “Les sarcophages chrétiens de l'église Saint Felix de Géronne et l'Ecole Arlésienne de sculpture funéraire,” BAC (1911); J. Puig i Cadafalch, L'Arquitectura romana a Catalunya (1934) I.
J. MALUQUER DE MOTES