Alba Fucens is an “archaeological jewel,” says Joseph Mertens of the University of Louvain in Belgium, who has been excavating at this romantic Roman site for more than 40 years.
Founded as a Roman military base in 303 B.C., the site later became a thriving commercial center and was finally destroyed by an earthquake in the fourth century A.D.
“What makes the site particularly interesting is that the city plan has changed remarkably little since 303 B.C.,” says Mertens.
Still nestled within its ring of original walls, Alba Fucens sits in a broad valley rimmed by the lofty Abruzzi mountains, including the often snow-capped twin peaks of Monte Velino (8,159 feet). Nearby hilltops are crowned by the broken walls of a medieval castle and by an intact Roman temple converted into a Benedictine church.
In the late fourth century B.C., Rome conducted a decades-long war against its neighbors both to the north (the Etruscans and Umbrians) and to the south (the Samnites, a hardened mountain people). Thus Romans established Alba Fucens as a military base at a strategic crossroad in the heart of central Italy. In one of the largest colonial enterprises ever undertaken in ancient times, 3,000 Roman legionaries and their 069families, perhaps as many as 7,000 people, marched from Rome across the Italian peninsula, along treacherous mountain passes, to settle in the military colony.
Studying the remains from this period, Mertens has established the essential plan of the ancient city, including its forum and comitium, or administrative center.
With the Pax Romana, begun during the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 B.C.–14 A.D.), the glowering citadel town was no longer needed—at least for its original purpose. But it was easily converted into a commercial entrepôt. The same crossroads that had brought the sandaled soldiers now brought prosperity from trade. As a result, the city was refurbished with such luxuries as public baths, a theater and an amphitheater for gladiatorial combat. On the sunniest slopes politicians and merchants built luxurious private villas.
The settlement’s original plan was retained, however, with its regular grid of measured city blocks 270 by 105 feet and its arrow-straight streets. The city could now be entered from four gates and boasted an astonishing four piazzas, the whole surrounded by a stout defensive wall over two miles in circumference.
In the fourth century A.D., earthquakes followed by fire destroyed most of the city. Survivors moved onto one of the hilltops. Goats pastured among the still-visible ruins. And so it remained—until Mertens watched the obliterated city miraculously re-emerge from pastureland.
Alba Fucens is an “archaeological jewel,” says Joseph Mertens of the University of Louvain in Belgium, who has been excavating at this romantic Roman site for more than 40 years. Founded as a Roman military base in 303 B.C., the site later became a thriving commercial center and was finally destroyed by an earthquake in the fourth century A.D. “What makes the site particularly interesting is that the city plan has changed remarkably little since 303 B.C.,” says Mertens. Still nestled within its ring of original walls, Alba Fucens sits in a broad valley rimmed by the lofty Abruzzi […]
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
