Ferreira do Alentejo: the Romans in a cross-way?

The territory of Ferreira do Alentejo is situated between Pax Iulia (Beja) and Salacia (Alcácer do Sal), in the Lusitanian conventus Pacensis. Is near also to the so-called «Sudoeste Alentejano», where prospered, in the Iron Age, a strange civilisation that had also an strange pre-roman language, already not deciphered today. In this paper, I try to demonstrate that this Ferreira do Alentejo’s territory at the Roman period, with various villae not yet excavated and with singular epigraphic monuments, was surely in one eminent cross-way: at west, the mineral exploration and a traditional lifestyle; at east, the urban life of Pax Iulia. The few epigraphic monuments conserved have, in this moment, a very difficult lecture and interpretation, but their decoration let us remember some pre-roman decoration. In other hand, in the epigraphic texts one nomen is very present: Mummius. I think that was one of the more important families in the region at the Roman period