Merida - Casa del Mithraeum

In the Roman Empire, the city was known as "Emerita Augusta", the capital of the province of Lusitania. It was founded in 25 BC by Emperor Augustus as a colony for the veteran soldiers ("emeritus") of the Roman legions. The city was very important in Roman Hispania. It was endowed with all the comforts of a large Roman city and served as the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. For centuries, until the fall of the Roman Empire, Mérida was an important economic, military, and cultural center.

Following invasions from the Visigoths, Mérida remained an important city of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania in the 6th century. In 713, the Arabs conquered the city and devastated it. Even under Islamic rule, Mérida remained a bishop's seat until it was moved to Santiago de Compostela in 1119.

In 1230 the Christian troops under Alfonso IX conquered Mérida during the Reconquista.

The "Mithraeum House" is a building found fortuitously in the early 1960s that takes its name from the discovery in its vicinity of some statues that must have come from a Mithraeum. The whole house was built around three colonnaded courts with an interior garden and a central pool. The visible remains cover an area of more than 2000 m². The residence was built end of the 1. century.