The Best-Preserved Roman Walls in Europe

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:02]Lugo, Spain. Ancient Lucus Augusti has the best preserved Roman city walls in Europe.

[00:00:09]Almost the entire circuit survives, complete with its gates and towers.

[00:00:14]The total length is about 1 and 1/3 miles. About half the length, incidentally, of Roman London's walls.

[00:00:24]Lugo's walls are up to 20 ft thick and 35 ft tall.

[00:00:30]They were strengthened by 85 semi-circular towers and pierced by five gates.

[00:00:36]Five more were added in the 19th century.

[00:00:40]The walls were faced with blocks of local slate and filled with packed earth and rubble.

[00:00:48]The walls were constructed in the late 3rd century, around the same time as Rome's Aurelian walls.

[00:00:55]Like those walls, they recycled quite a bit of material from older buildings and monuments.

[00:01:00]Several dozen early Imperial tombstones and altars have been found embedded in the masonry.

[00:01:08]Lugo's walls were built at a time of widespread unrest.

[00:01:12]From 260 to 262, Spain was part of the breakaway Gallic Empire established by Postumus.

[00:01:20]Just before that period, Frankish and Allemani raiders, who had breached the Rhine frontier, raided into Spain.

[00:01:29]Their incursions may have inspired the walls' construction.

[00:01:34]This is the Porta Mina, the best preserved of the five original gates.

[00:01:40]Flanked by two huge towers, both originally taller, it resembles, on a smaller scale, Rome's Porta San Sebastiano.

[00:01:49]The stone in the lower parts of the walls was recycled from early Imperial buildings.

[00:01:57]Lugo, Lucus Augusti, emerged in the wake of Augustus' Cantabrian Wars, which finally brought the northwestern corner of Spain under Roman control.

[00:02:08]A fortress was built here, large enough to hold five cohorts, half a legion.

[00:02:14]The town that grew up around it eventually became a city.

[00:02:20]Lugo prospered quietly, becoming a conventus as I see it, center, and attaining the status of municipium by the early 3rd century.

[00:02:31]At no point, however, was it a large settlement.

[00:02:35]The population was probably only a few thousand.

[00:02:41]During the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Lugo fell to the Suevi, who massacred some of its inhabitants.

[00:02:49]Three centuries later, the city was conquered by the Arabs and may have been completely abandoned.

[00:02:55]But it was soon reoccupied and reinvigorated, and the walls have been maintained continuously ever since.

[00:03:03]There have been some minor changes. As mentioned earlier, new gates have been punched through, and some towers have lost their upper stories.

[00:03:12]But overall, the walls of Lugo remain much as the Romans made them 17 and 1/2 centuries ago.

[00:03:24]The inner face of the walls.

[00:03:42]Continuing along the wall walk, despite a rather persistent drizzle, yet more atmospheric wall walking.