In the port city of Tarragona, in the northeastern Spain’s Catalonia region.

 “We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.” ― G.K. Chesterton

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(in northeastern Spain on the Costa Daurada, by the Mediterranean Sea) The city of Tarragona iis known for its ancient Roman ruins from its days of a colony known as Tarraco, founded in 218 BCE. While not the only Roman city of Spain, this was the very first Roman city beyond the Western Empire stronghold on the Italian peninsula. Tarragona, the capital of Tarragona province in the autonomous community of Catalonia, is found at the mouth of the Francolí River, on a hill rising from the Mediterranean Sea. Tarragona is a flourishing seaport, an important agricultural market, and the center of active tourism, mostly concentrated in some well-known beach resorts.

+ Once the seat of an Iberian tribe, when it was captured (in 218 BCE) by the Roman generals Gnaeus and Publius Scipio, they improved its harbors and its walls, transforming it into the earliest Roman stronghold in Spain. Julius Caesar initiated its period of splendor and called it Colonia Julia Victrix Triumphalis to commemorate his victories. A temple was built in honor of the Roman emperor Augustus, who made Tarraco the capital of Hispania Tarraconensis. The emperors Hadrian and Trajan endowed Tarraco with power and cultural prestige, while its flax trade and other industries made it one of the richest seaports of the Roman Empire. Its fertile plain and sunny shores were praised by the Roman lyricist Martial, and its famous wines extolled by the writer Pliny the Elder.

According to tradition, St. Paul, with the help of St. Thecla, founded the Christian church in Spain at Tarraco in the year 60 CE. The city was razed by the Moors in 714 and remained of negligible importance until early in the 12th century, when it was recaptured by the Christians. After 1119 Tarragona resumed its new life as an prominent city of the Spanish kingdom of Aragon, and from it James I organized the conquest of Majorca (in 1229). Having inherited from Rome an imperial sense of unity, Tarragona has maintained contined loyalty to the kings of Spain and has been a bulwark against invaders. Its old quarter, with many houses built partly of Roman masonry, is more than half surrounded by Roman walls and square towers from the time of the empire. Roman ruins include the theater, amphitheater, circus (now forming part of the city’s archaeological museum), forum, necropolis, a nearby aqueduct, the so-called Tomb of the Scipios, and the Triumphal Arch of Bará. The cathedral (12th–13th century) reflects a transitional style (between Romanesque and Gothic), with a fine cloister. Tarragona has a pontifical university, a school of arts and crafts, a large technical school, and a paleo-Christian museum with one of the best collections of 4th- and 5th-century Christian documents in Spain. It is also the seat of an archbishop.