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The items traded in the Bidasoa area probably included preserved fish, wood, furs and silver, lead and iron ingots, as well as products obtained in the surrounding territories. This trade would have been in the hands of an urban merchant class whose members did not actually produce anything, limiting themselves instead to trading in commodities. The environment was favourable to business, with weights, measures and currency all being standardised throughout the empire. The containers, or amphorae, were also of standard sizes and shapes. At the same time, the city had a plentiful supply of glass-workers, ironsmiths, weavers, potters and other workers, both freemen and slaves, who concentrated on mass production for local and foreign markets.
There was also a large services sector, with domestic servants who carried drinking water, cooked, undertook repairs, sewed or worked in the garden. They all required basic foodstuffs which were not to be found in the city area, although they would have had some fruit trees, vegetable plots and animals for their own consumption. Commerce, as is shown, was one of the chief activities in Oiasso, which traded products at a regional level. The finds so far show that produce came from as far afield as the Ribera of Navarre, La Rioja, the Saintes district north of Bordeaux and from other regions linked to the river traffic of the Garonne. Occasional merchandise arrived as a result of long-distance trade networks, as in the case of goods from Andalusia, the Gulf of Narbonne, the coasts of Italy, North Africa and even the eastern Mediterranean. Generally speaking, imports accounted for 30% of the port's business, and its radius of activity centred on the Gulf of Biscay. As a seaport Oiasso would have served as a trade outlet for the inland regions between the left bank of the Garonne and the middle valley of the Ebro, thanks to the links between the port and the overland communications network through which trade was channelled along certain roads.
Amongst the thousands of objects recovered during the excavations of the port of Oiasso are small pieces of ingots of raw glass. This material was mainly produced along the coasts of Asia Minor, owing to the quality of sand there, which had a high silica content. The sands were smelted down and left to set in big blocks which were then broken up and shipped to the West. Whatever the origin of the ingots discovered at Oiasso, they are clear evidence of the existence of local craftsmen who turned them into everyday objects like bottles, glasses, plates and phials. Although the glass-blowers' workshops have not yet been found, they may be assumed to have worked some distance away from the urban area, at the edge of the city. The proportion of glass articles in the stores of the townspeople is very high and includes a sizeable variety of kitchenware items. Several colours of glass have been found, ranging from whitish to dark, with a preponderance of iridescent blues and greens. The usual blowing and moulding techniques were used, although there is one exceptional piece of carved glass depicting the profile of the face of a femenine figure; it is still possible to make out a very fanciful hairstyle, the features of the face and even an earring on the ear-lobe.
There were most certainly ironsmiths in the town: excavations have brought to light utensils and even a stock of studs, stored in a pot. These items had been buried next to the foundations of a building, in the area now occupied by Beraketa St - one of the oldest streets in Irun - probably in the first century A.D. The reason for hiding them remains obscure. Amongst the tools were a file and a pair of small anvils for making nails and, next to these, over a hundred pieces of all shapes and sizes. The studs are short with large rounded heads, but there are also long nails with square-shaped heads which are thought to have been used for pinning construction beams together. The way in which they were made was probably as follows: the smith would draw out an iron bar in the forge, heating and shaping it until he had made thinner rods of approximately the size of the intended object. While the metal was still red-hot, he cut pieces off the rod of the size of nails or tacks and hammered one end to a point. The heads were made afterwards, by inserting the rods or pins into a hole in the anvil and hammering the other end flat.
The forge was the last link in the iron-working chain. The first stage involved "reducing" the iron to obtain rough ingots; these were then refined into compressed metal bars of uniform quality. The ironsmiths were responsible for transforming these bars into miscellaneous implements, from knives, spears and cow-bells to ploughs, rings and nails. They were also responsible for repairs.
Pottery is another craft associated with the Oiasso urban area. No kilns or workshops have yet been discovered; but studies of the thousands of fragments of vessels which have appeared to date all point in one direction. Aside from the imported articles, the items, for all their variety of form and finish, share a number of common features in terms of the make-up of the clay. This suggests a single supplier of raw material and a common clay-making and pottery tradition. Further evidence to support this theory comes from the way the pottery industry was organised at the time, with regional centres of production supplying specific areas. These production centres were usually situated in the most important towns in the area.
The widespread use of money payments and the standardisation of weights and measures are only two examples of the profound transformations that were taking place at the beginning of the Christian Era. The earlier self-sufficiency and subsistence models lost ground in an urban society based on regional and even international trade, as well as more local commerce. It is hardly surprising that the citizens who had been freed from the burden of producing their own food, and who were now devoted to obtaining resources for sustenance and profit, living in stable groupings and concentrated in a delimited space, should develop new ways of living together and relating to one another. Bearing in mind that Latin law began to be implemented from the year 74 A.D. onwards, there must have been a municipal organisation. This would probably have been first and foremost concerned with administering justice, collecting taxes and maintaining the cult of the emperor. Since Oiasso was a border city between Aquitania and Tarraconense, there may also have been a portorium for levying tolls and transport taxes. The Roman economic system, of course, depended on a work-force of slaves to keep its productive sectors operative. Slaves were assigned the hardest tasks but were also given more usual occupations in the home, education and trade.
Dwellings were equipped with only the most basic furnishings. Cupboards, niches, paved floors and mural paintings were the main focal points, with furniture being confined to very basic items such as beds, chests, stools, lampstands and utensils for washing and heating. The kitchen was the best-equipped room. The most common utensils were ceramic vessels which were used for holding liquids, for cooking and serving food, for storage, as flowerpots and so on. One of the kitchens unearthed was equipped with typical utensils including pots, plates and bowls. The pot would have been used for cooking food, as can be seen by the fire-marks on the base and the fitting lids. Depending on its size, however, a pot could also be used for storage. The plate and bowl would have been used at table. Other ranges have also been found, showing that all the most common models of plates, glasses, pots and jars were available in the civitas of Oiasso. There were also bouilloires, jars used for boiling water, probably to make herbal teas, and local amphorae. The highest quality articles, however, came from elsewhere. This is the case of the mortars used to prepare seasonings, which had to be particularly tough, and the baking dishes, which had to support high temperatures, and also of the tableware, the famous terra sigillata. Initially tableware from Montans was used but with the expansion of the Tricio workshops near Nájera, tableware from La Rioja took over the Oiasso market. It came to account for about 15% of all the pottery used in the city, and included a wide variety of plates, goblets, bowls and tumblers. There were other items too: tumblers and 'fine-walled' goblets crafted from a very fine paste. The majority of these articles come from two sources - one to the north, on the far side of the mouth of the Garonne in the Saintes region and the other to the south-east, in the Ribera of Navarre.
Torches soaked in inflammable substances were used to light public places and dark streets and roads, and also in religious ceremonies. Inside the houses candles (candelae) and small oil lamps (lucernae) were used, either singly or in sets. Oil lamps are one of the most representative manifestations of Roman visual art, reflecting popular tastes. They combine the features of a basic low-cost product (they were mass produced in clay, using moulds), widespread use, fragility and a vehicle for decorative art. Oil lamps fitted in the palm of the hand but the surface area was large enough to accommodate drawings and figures. They could have floral or geometric patterns or figures of animals, busts of gods, battle scenes or erotic and other motifs, which would be chosen by the purchaser according to his tastes.
Thanks to the regional trade channelled through the seaport of Oiasso, oil, cereals and wine were a staple part of urban life. The usual suppliers were the vineyards of the Gironde (Bordeaux), the oil-producing region of the Ebro and the great granaries of the Adour, the Garonne and the Ebro. On occasion products from other areas were also available: the prized olive oil of Andalusia, wine from the Gulf of Rosas and - very exceptionally - products from the Eastern Mediterranean. There were, of course, local cereals and vineyards, and animal fats were used to supplement vegetable oils, but all these were for private consumption and were insufficient to meet the needs of the whole community. The everyday diet also included a great variety of fruits and berries, both fresh and dried, like figs, sloes, plums and prunes, cherries, morello cherries, grapes, olives, blueberries and peaches (the latter were very plentiful), and nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, beechnuts, acorns, pine-nuts and almonds. Many of these were native wild products from the beech and oak forests; others came from plantations introduced by the Romans, as was the case of walnuts, hazelnuts, plums, figs and cherries; yet others, like olives and almonds, pine-nuts and peaches, were imported.
Pork was the most common meat, though mutton, kid and beef were also eaten. Supervised herds of pigs would have been fattened up in the oak-forests surrounding the city; flocks of sheep were also kept, in other pastures. The hills encircling the city were safe summer pastures while in the winter the animals would have been taken to graze in coastal areas. It is reasonable to think that cattle were tended in a similar way, though some stabling may also have taken place. Indeed, the regular supply of milk and the evidence of farm-work would suggest that stables may even have been located in the urban area itself. Hens, chickens and cocks were all a standard feature of city life, as were dogs and horses. Hunting provided another source of meat, with the citizens eating venison, hare and fowl.
Fish and shellfish were also commonly eaten and vast numbers of oysters were consumed. This varied diet was completed with garden products: we have evidence of the cultivation of celery and strawberries, and of medicinal plants such as mint and vervain.
The evidence suggests that spinning, weaving and sewing were all common practices. Vegetable fibres such as linen and animal fibres such as wool were both used. The raw material was spun on metal spindles and fusaiolas, generally made of pottery. The cloth was then woven on wooden looms, of which vertical looms with weights, invented during the Bronze Age, were most common. Finally the cloth was cut up and hand-stitched with the aid of pins and thimbles. Belts, pins and clasps were used for fitting.
People wore the footwear typical of the Roman world. Most of the pieces recovered come from the underside of the shoe, and both fragments and intact soles have been found. There are remains of studded footwear, but it is impossible to determine whether they come from boots or sandals. There are also examples of stitched footwear, both pointed and rounded in shape.
Hairstyling was not merely a matter of enhancing personal appearance: its primary function was hygienic - well-groomed hair kept parasites at bay. Combs were carved from a single piece of wood, with rows of teeth extending out on either side from a central shaft. The teeth at one end were set very close together to aid delousing, while at the other end they were more widely spaced for grooming. Long hair was tied back with ribbons, braided or gathered into a bun which was held in place with a back comb, a metal hairpin or small needles fixed on a rounded head, called acus crinalis or 'hair needles', generally made of bone.
Jewellery was worn extensively. Bronze pendants were very common, as were gold pendants with openwork motifs, glass beads or stone or glass paste inlay. People wore bracelets (arnillae), necklaces (monilia) and chains (catena) from which they hung amulets, often associated with popular superstitions. They also wore rings (annuli), sometimes engraved with personal emblems or containing mounted engravings crafted with precious stones, bearing religious or allegorical motifs.
Some of the items unearthed at the civitas of Oiasso suggest that local citizens enjoyed a high standard of living. Graffiti on clay vessels, consisting of lines drawn with a sharp object after the vessel was made, demonstrates that writing and use of the Latin alphabet were common among the inhabitants of the polis. Another important find consists of a cache of spoons and applicators used for preparing and applying ointments and powders. The spoons are very finely made, with a small bowl, and the applicators resemble cylindrical rods, except for one which may have been some kind of medical probe. Excavations have also unearthed a tessera. Tesserae were tokens, generally made of metal and shaped somewhat like coins. They were used as entrance tickets for theatres, hot baths and other public places, and also as counters in games, safe-conducts or receipts for payment of services, and probably for other functions which have not been identified.
During their leisure time, children and adults alike played a wide variety of games, some of which have come down to us virtually unchanged. These included gymnastic sports, spinning tops, marbles, handball, noughts and crosses, knucklebones, odds and evens, heads-or-tails, dice and ludus latrunculorum, which was very popular amongst soldiers: this was a game of strategy played on a board and was akin to chess or draughts. Each player had 18 counters. However, the most popular games among adults were dice and knucklebones. These were not just pastimes: important amounts of money and other goods were staked on the result. Fair play was not always the order of the day - examples of weighted dice have been discovered from the period.
Inevitably, all this change and transformation had an impact on the environment and ecology of the surrounding area, as more and more woodland was felled, new orchards were planted with imported species of trees and mining work created its own pollution. In itself the timber required for construction and as fuel in silver-mining and iron-working must have reduced the forest area significantly. The fruit plantations too must have altered the landscape considerably: many of the seeds found during the Oiasso excavations are the first of their species in the Iberian Peninsula. There is evidence of plum, fig and even cherry trees, indicating not only that these hitherto unknown species were introduced and grown in the area, but also that they underwent improvement and selection methods. There are surprisingly high concentrations of lead pollution in the deposits of the Bidasoa estuary associated with Roman habitation. These are a by-product of mining in the area and come from the waste and run-off water used in cleaning and sifting the ore to extract silver.
