Calahorra is a municipality in the comarca of Rioja Baja, near the border with Navarre on the right bank of the Ebro. The city is located on a hill at an altitude of 358 metres at the confluence of the Ebro and Cidacos rivers. Calahorra is the second-largest city in La Rioja in population and importance, after the capital, Logroño. Its population is at 24,000 inhabitants.
During ancient Roman times, Calahorra was a municipium known as Calagurris Fibularia. Its status as seat of a comarca and judicial district make it a service-industry city, in administrative, commercial, and leisure fields.
Rome conquered the town in 187 BC and brought it to its highest point of importance as an administrative centre for surrounding regions. Calahorra supported Quintus Sertorius in his war against Pompey, whom the city resisted successfully since 76 BC. It was only taken four years later by Pompey’s legate Lucius Afranius, after a lot of inhabitants had died from starvation and there had occurred cannibalism. Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar gave the city (then named Calagurris) numerous distinctions, converted it into a municipality, and developed its city planning, economy, and politics. Its archeological remains show that it had a circus, baths, an amphitheatre, and other services found in large cities. It minted money and served as a justice administration centre.
Quintilian, well known for his descriptions of the culture of that time, was born in Calahorra, and the Parador in the city is named after him. It has Roman ruins in the grounds. Saints Emeterius and Celedonius, martyred in the city around 305 AD, are the patron saints of the city, and the city’s coat-of-arms depict their names. The cathedral is dedicated to them. The Christian Roman poet Prudentius may have inhabited at some point in Calahorra, who pinpoints it on the territory of the Vascones in the 4th century.
