Lleida

Lleida is one of the oldest towns in Catalonia, with recorded settlements dating back to the Bronze Age period [1]. The town became a municipality, named Ilerda, under the reign of Augustus [1]. In ancient times the city, named Iltrida and Ilerda, was the chief city of the Ilergetes, an Iberian tribe [1]. Indíbil, king of the Ilergetes, and Mandoni, king of the Ausetanes, defended it against the Carthaginian and Roman invasions [1]. Under the Romans the city was incorporated into the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis, and was a place of considerable importance [1]. It stood upon an eminence, on the right bank of the river Sicoris (the modern Segre), the principal tributary of the Ebro, and some distance above its confluence with the Cinga (modern Cinca); thus commanding the country between those rivers, as well as the great road from Tarraco (modern Tarragona), the provincial capital, to the northwest of Spain [1]. Its situation induced the legates of Pompey in Spain to make it the key of their defense against Caesar, in the first year of the Civil War (49 BC) [1].