Founded around the year 16 b.C., by Emperor Augustus (63 b.C. – 14 a.C.), Bracara Augusta was immediately provided with autonomous government structures, with senate and magistrates. Besides, its condition of conventus capital – second degree of roman administrative circumscription, after the provinces -, exercised legal, religious and economic functions over a vast territory, reason by which it watched a systematic movement of population from the first half of the I century.
It was precisely during this period that several public buildings were the rose, at the same time as the residential blocks were expanded, building, between others, the structures today is known as “Roman ruins of Carvalheiras” (Ruínas Romanas das Carvalheiras), corresponding to an urban area located a block Norwest from the city, nearby the Camp of Carvalheiras.
It was in a land posteriorly used for agricultural purposes, that were recorded the presence of buildings attributable to the period of the Roman presence in the current Portuguese territory. Built and restructured between I and V a.C. centuries, this residential roman area, of private and public character, constitutes one of the biggest of all the registered until now as belonging to the roman city of Bracara Augusta.
