History
Mérida was founded by the Romans in 25 B.C., under the name of Augusta Emerita, as a colony for veterans of the Vth and Xth Legions. The town prospered and became capital of the province of Lusitania; with a population of 50,000, it was the largest Roman town in Iberia and the political and
cultural center of the whole peninsula. After Christianity was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire Mérida was one of the first Roman cities to become the see of an archbishop. It retained its position after its conquest by the Visigoths in the fifth century, but its decline began after it fell to the Moors in 713. The decline continued after its reconquest by Alfonso IX of León, who granted it in 1229 to the knightly Order of Santiago.
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