Archaeologists discover the remains of a once-thriving metropolis that was home to 2,000 people – and even gained the backing of Julius Caesar
It remained abandoned for around 1,500 years, a lost relic of the Roman era.
But a forgotten town that dates back to the days of Julius Caesar has finally been uncovered in Central Italy.
Interamna Lirenas, located about halfway between Rome and Napes, was a ‘thriving’ Roman town that would have been home to 2,000 people at its peak, experts say.
Despite being mistaken by archeologists in the 1980s as merely a small settlement, it was a grand town complete with a housing, a temple, baths and a roofed theatre.
Unlike Pompeii and Herculaneum, it wasn’t destroyed by a natural disaster and was only abandoned in the 6th century AD due to the threat of invasion.
The experts focused on pottery and the foundations of buildings from the excavations, as well as the results of geophysical surveys of the ground.
Excavations at the site commenced in 2010, but only now have the results been published.
The 13-year study was authored by Dr Alessandro Launaro at the University of Cambridge’s Classics Faculty.
‘Interamna Lirenas was strategically located between a river and a major road, and it was a thriving node in the regional urban network,’ he said.
‘It would have been valuable as he sought to consolidate support across Italy during the civil wars.
‘This town continually played its cards right, it was always forging relations with communities between Rome and southern Italy while thriving as a trading hub.’
Interamna Lirenas was founded in 312 BC, during the era of the Roman Republic (the era before the mighty Roman Empire).
The town gained the patronage of Roman general Julius Caesar in 46 BC, two years before his murder (which led to the formation of the Roman Empire in 27 BC).
But Interamna Lirenas was abandoned in the 6th century – around 100 years after the decline of the Empire.
THE LIFE (AND HORRIFIC DEATH) OF JULIUS CAESAR
Julius Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic who lived from 100 – 44 BC.
Julius Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic who lived from 100 – 44 BC (artist’s impression)
As a general from 60 – 68 BC, Caesar added the whole of modern France and Belgium to the Roman empire, and crushed rebel Gallic forces across Europe in the Gallic wars.
In total he made two expeditions to Britain, in 55 BC and 54 BC, though never established a force of occupation.
Caesar returned to Italy a hero and famously crossed the Rubicon river in 49 BC without disbanding his army, insulting the authority of the Roman senate.
In the ensuing civil war Caesar defeated the republican forces, and took control of the Empire as dictator.
He used his power to carry out much-needed reform, relieving debt, enlarging the senate, building the Forum Iulium and revising the calendar.
Caesar’s ambition and success eventually led to his downfall when a group of republican senators assassinated him in 44 BC.
Julius Caesar was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and 60 other co-conspirators.
On his way to the Theatre of Pompey where he would be assassinated, the all-powerful Caesar visited a seer who had foretold that harm would come to him not later than the Ides of March.
Caesar joked, ‘The ides of March are come’, to which the seer replied ‘Ay, Caesar, but not gone.’
His wife Calpurnia had dreamed of his body streaming with blood and tried to prevent him from leaving the house.
As Caesar took his Senate seat, the conspirators gathered around him. One then took hold of his purple toga and ripped it away from his neck.
A dagger was thrust at Caesar’s throat but missed and only wounded him.
Another assassin then drove a dagger into his chest as he twisted away from the first assailant.
Brutus struck Caesar in the groin. It was later written that Brutus was reproached in Greek with the words ‘You, too, my child?’