The walls erected by Julius Caesar (100-44 BC.) probably followed a line from Mateos Gago, Puerta de la Carne, Puerta Osario, Santa Catalina, Villasís, Cuna, and El Salvador to the Cathedral.
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During the time of the Visigoths, the walls deteriorated seriously and their fragility hardly defended the city against the Moorish invasion in 711 and Viking attacks in 844. Abd-al-Rahman II (788-852) ordered their reconstruction to protect the city against further assaults and river flooding. In 1126 the Almoravids enlarged the walls, making them three times as long. Most of the new walled area was for agricultural use although some was empty land. In 1221, an outer wall and a moat surrounding it were built. These were the walls that Fernando III(1201-1252), the Saint, found when he conquered the city in 1248. |
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At the time the wall had more than 150 towers and a dozen gates which survived until medieval times. In the following centuries, as the wall was no longer used for defensive purposes, houses and stables were built next to it. It nonetheless provided the best possible protection against the violent floodings of the Guadalquivir River. In 1861, a municipal agreement was reached to knock down the wall in order to expand the city. The works were completed in 1869 but parts of the wall can still be seen today at Torre de Abdellaziz, Torre de la Plata, Plaza del Cabildo and Postigo del Aceite. The longest part still standing stretches from the Macarena Arch to the Puerta de Córdoba gate, where an arch, the Torre Blanca (white tower) and seven square watchtowers, approximately 40 metres apart each other, stand next to the outer wall and the moat. |