Cartagena, tu ciudad activa
The city of Cartagena was founded, with the name of [Cartagena Port, 1868] Quart Hadast around the year 227 B.C. by the Carthaginian general Asdrúbal on a previous population nucleus that is related with the Mastia that was found in the "Ora Marítima" written by the roman Rufo Festo Avieno in the 4th Century B.C. The Carthaginian prescense in it would be short lived since in 209 B.C., during the Second Punic War it was conquered by the roman Publio Cornelio Escipión.
Under the Roman control the city would live its largest moments of splendor between the end of the 3rd Century B.C. and the start of the 2nd Century B.C. In the year 44 B.C. it recieved the title of colony under the denomination Colonia Urbs Iulia Nova Carthago. The city¿s importance rested, together with its mining richness, on its privileged positionand the uniqueness of its topography, surroundedby hills and with a lake, or inland sea (El Almarjal), to the north, which enabled the city to be easilydefended. Entrance to the Military Aresenal
With the end of the Roman Empire, the city entered period of decadence of which we have little information. We do know that the Vandals passed through the city and that it was dominated by the Visigoths until 555 A.D., the year in which the Byzantine troops of Justinian in his attempt to recuperate the territories belonging to the Western Roman Empire, took the city and converted it into the capital of the province of Hispania, which covered south-easterly part of the peninsula from Malaga to Cartagena itself. The city was retaken by the Visigoths after being conquered and devastated at the beginning of the 7th Century. From this moment, Cartagena would just about disappear as a city.
Alfonso X to the city of Cartagena granting that the mayors of the city could judge the cases between Christians and Moors (19 May, 1257). In the year 734 due to the agreement of Cora de Tudmir, it would fall under Muslim power, then commencing, and especially between the 10th and 12th Centuries, a slow process of recuperation, that is reflected by its reference in the works of Arab writers. Concession Privilege of the Fuero de Cordoba I the City of Cartagena in 1246 by Fernando III.
In 1245, Alfonso X The Wise ¿ who at that time was still a Prince ¿ conquered the city, who would recuperate among other things its condition as Episcopal see. The following Low Medieval centuries were a period of decadence, which drew to its end in the 16th Century as the country experienced a general economic and political resurgence. However, the widespread epidemics that assailed the country during the 17th Century brought this phase to a halt.
Cartagena recovered its former importance during the 18thCentury. As a result of its naming in 1728 as the capital of the Mediterranean Maritime Department, the construction of the city¿s Arsenal, castles and the barracks covered by the city¿s fortification plan drafted by the military engineer Martín Zermeño under the directions of the Count of Aranda, a great constructive and merchant activity was responsible for attracting large numbers of new inhabitants that quickly led the population to grow from 10,000 to 50,000.
Consistorial Palace Following a new period of crisis during the first half of the 19thCentury, the city was to enjoy a new upsurge as a result of its mining activities, which in turn served as stimulation for the industrial and economic activities. It was following the destruction caused by the Cantonal Revolution in 1873 that Cartagena was to acquire its current appearance, with the construction of numerous public and private buildings that reflect the most significant eclectic and modernist tendencies of the age in Spain.
Cartagena faced the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War immersed in a new economic crisis, which was the result of the mining crisis produced towards the end of the 1920¿s. During the Civil War, the city became one of the most important strong holds of the Republican Government and, together with Alicante, was the last city to surrender to the troops of General Franco.
©Ayuntamiento de Cartagena (España)
