ABSTRACT
Among the events he records under A.D. 15 Tacitus mentions that an embassy of Spaniards received permission to construct a temple to Augustus at the colony of Tarraco: templum ut in colonia Tarraconensi strueretur Augusto petentibus Hispanis permissum datumque in omnes prouincias exemplum. The successful embassy of A.D. 15 has usually been brought into relation with a series of dupondii issued by the colony of Tarraco. Monumental vestiges from this region go back to the Middle Ages and have steadily accrued over the intervening centuries in the form of fragmentary columns and assorted architectural and iconographic fragments nowadays dispersed in various museums or even built into the cathedral walls. Revolutionary as it is, this entire reconstruction raises a slew of problems. A further incongruity is the identification of the octostyle temple on the coins as a civic structure.
