SARAGOSSA (Zaragoza), the capital of the Spanish province of Saragossa and formerly of the kingdom of Aragon, seat of an archbishop, of a court of appeal, and of the captain-general of Aragon; on the right bank of the river Ebro, 212 m. by rail N.E. of Madrid. Pop. (1930) 173,987. Saragossa (Celtiberian, Salduba) was made a colony by Augustus at the close of the Celtiberian War (25 B.c.), and renamed Caesarea Augusta or Caesaraugusta, from which "Saragossa" is derived. Under the Romans it was the chief commercial and military station in the Ebro valley, and the seat of one of the four conventus juridici (assizes) of Hither Spain. It was captured in 452 by the Suebi, and in 476 by the Visigoths, whose rule lasted until the Moorish conquest in 712, and under whom Saragossa was the first city to abandon the Arian heresy. In 777 its Moorish ruler, the viceroy of Barcelona, appealed to Charlemagne for aid against the powerful caliph of Cordova, Abd-ar-Rahman I. Charlemagne besieged the Cordovan army in Sarkosta, as the city was then called ; but a rebellion of his Saxon subjects compelled him to withdraw his army. The Moors were finally expelled by Alphonso I. of Aragon in 1118, after a siege lasting nine months. As the capital of Aragon, Sara gossa prospered greatly until the second half of the 15th century, when the court was transferred to Castile.
In 1710 the allied British and Austrian armies defeated the forces of Philip V. at Saragossa in the war of the Spanish Suc cession; but it was in the Peninsular War (q.v.) that the city reached the zenith of its fame. An ill-armed body of citizens, led by Jose de Palafox y Melzi (see PALAFOX), held the hastily entrenched city against Marshal Lefebvre from June 15 to Aug. 15, 1808. The siege was then raised in consequence of the reverse suffered by the French at Bailen (q.v.), but it was renewed on Dec. 20 and on the 27th of January the invaders entered the city. Even then they encountered a desperate resistance, and it
was not until Feb. 20 that the defenders were compelled to capitu late. Thousands of people perished in the city, largely through famine and disease. Among the defenders was the famous "Maid of Saragossa," Maria Agustin, whose exploits were described by Byron in Childe Harold (I, 55 sqq.).
Saragossa is an important railway junction; it is connected by direct main lines with Valladolid, Madrid and Valencia in the west and south, and by the Ebro Valley Railway with Catalonia and the Basque Provinces ; also with France, via the Somport tunnel and with the northern districts of Aragon and Cariliena on the south west. The city is built in an oasis of highly cultivated land, irri gated by a multitude of streams which distribute the waters of the Imperial Canal, and surrounded by an arid plain exposed to the full sweep of violent gales which blow down, hot in summer and icy in winter.
One of its two stone bridges, the seven-arched Puente de Piedra, dates from ; there is also an iron bridge for the rail way to Pamplona. The two most important buildings of Sara gossa are its cathedrals, to each of which the chapter is attached for six months in the year. La Seo ("The See") is the older of the two, dating chiefly from the 14th century; its prevailing style is Gothic, but the oldest portion, the lower walls of the apse, is Byzantine. The Iglesia Metropolitana del Pilar is the larger build ing, dating only from the latter half of the 17th century; it was built after designs by Herrera el Mozo, and owes its name to one of the most venerated objects in Spain, the "pillar" of jasper on which the Virgin is said to have alighted when she manifested herself to St. James as he passed through Saragossa. The uni versity was founded in