Termes
- a town in Spain, now Lerma, Plin. 3, 3, 4, § 27; Flor. 3, 22 fin.
- —Hence, Termestīnus, a, um, adj., belonging to Termes, Tac. A. 4, 45.—Subst.: Termestīni, ōrum, m. plur., the inhabitants of Termes, Epit. Liv. 54 Drak. —
- II A town in Ionia, Plin. 5, 29, 31, § 118.
TERMES (Τέρμες, Ptol. 2.6.56), a town of the Arevaci in Hispania Tarraconensis. It is probably the same town called Τερμησός and Τερμαντία by Appian (6.76 and 99). The inhabitants are called Termestini in Livy (Epit. liv.) and Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 4.45; cf. coins in Sertini, p. 208). Termes was seated on a steep hill, and was often besieged without success by the Romans, till at last the inhabitants, on account of their hostile disposition towards Rome, were compelled in B.C. 97 to build a new city on the plain and without walls (App. 6.99). It lay undoubtedly on the site of the present Ermita de nuestra Señora de Termnes, 9 leagues W. of Numantia.
[T.H.D]Site near Montejo de Liceras and Osma, an oppidum belonging to the Arevaci in the Conventus Cluniensis. Cited by Appian and Diodorus. Mentioned during the Celtiberian wars when it defeated Q. Pompeius (141 B.C.), but in 97 B.C. it was captured by T. Didius. It rallied to Sertorius against Rome but was finally subdued. The acropolis stands on a height with defensive works hewn out of the sandstone, rock-cut dwellings following the contour lines, and a kind of grandstand 70 m high for spectacles.
The Roman town, covering 21 ha, was surrounded by a wall protected by semicylindrical towers 5 m in radius, probably dating from the 1st c. A.D. A tunnel 105 m long, in the lower part of the acropolis, may be an aqueduct, a fortification, or a sewer. In the center of the town stands a large rectangular fortification with two covered passages one over the other. There was apparently a forum to the NW, a basilica, two or three baths with mosaics, and a temple. Excavations have yielded sculptures, mosaics, columns, capitals, antefixes, bronzes (Galba, Tiberius, Apollo, Eros, a warrior) fibulas, pottery, glassware, silver vases, altars, votive and funerary inscriptions, Celtiberian and Roman imperial coins, almost all of which are in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. There are also some architectural remains of the age of the Visigoths.
BIBLIOGRAPHYN. Sentenach, “Las ruinas de Termes,” Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos (1911) 102-16PI; B. Taracena, Carta Arqueológica de España. Soria (1941); A. García y Bellido, “Las ‘trullae’ argenteas de Tiermes,” ArchEspArq 39 (1966) 113ff.
M. PELLICER CATALAN