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Project Liternum. Archaeological investigations in the forum of the Roman colony of Liternum

Research manager:

Salvatore De Vincenzo

Start date: 2012

End date: Undefined

Brief description and research objectives:

Liternum located on the southeastern shore of Lake Patria about 8 km. as the crow flies from Cumae was founded according to Livy’s reports, ad ostia fluminum Volturni Liternique, at the mouth of the Literno River. The city, as well as Volturnum, Puteoli, Salernum and Buxentum is one of the five coloniae civium romanorum founded in 194 B.C. in oram maritimam, thanks to the sending of three hundred familiae in singulas colonias. In Liternum, as is well known, he owned a villa Scipio Africanus, who died in this center in 183 B.C. after retiring here in voluntary exile. A significant role in the development of the city was certainly played by the setting of the Domitian Way, which ran through the forum square.

The archaeological excavation project in Liternum, carried out under a ministerial excavation concession (MIC), aims to define the urban organization of the Roman city in diachrony. To date, the forum area, excavated by Amedeo Maiuri during the years 1932-1937 and structured around a large rectangular square measuring 92 x 47 m, is roughly known. Along the western side are arranged from the south: the basilica, the capitolium and the odeion, while on the northern and eastern sides there is a continuous series of tabernae open on a portico. Recent excavation campaigns have made it possible, in particular, to define and date the chronological development of the buildings, specifically highlighting how the setting of the forum dated only from the beginning of the first century BCE, with a subsequent phase of monumentalization in the Augustan age. Contextually, on the other hand, the construction of the Domitian Way, which runs through the forensic square, witnessed a radical reorganization of the capitolium.
Still unknown, however, remain numerous other aspects of the urban structure of the center, not least the location and organization of the city walls. Similarly, it is not possible today to determine whether Liternum overlapped with an earlier urban center or whether its foundation took place on an area not affected by an older settlement. The definition of a possible pre-Roman phase would provide new and significant data on the cultural identity of this settlement, considering the strategic location of the area, close to the border between the territorial sphere of influence of Greeks and Etruscans.

In the context of this project, the architectural analysis of the forum buildings, similarly to the stratigraphic investigation of their foundation levels, constitute the two central moments of the research, which are essential for the definition of the various construction phases documenting the urban development of the city.

Type of Funding and Call:

The project was initiated with a MIUR grant in the amount of 42,000 euros (Ministerial Program “Rita Levi Montalcini” / 2014-2017). In 2021, the Archaeological Park of the Phlegraean Fields contributed to the project by co-funding a PhD (amount of funding: 15,980 Euro). Since 2023, the project has been funded by the City of Giugliano in Campania (NA) (amount of funding: 6,000 euros).