Ancient Rome: another Venice?

EARLY Rome was not as we imagine it. It was a “shimmering city on water” and — like Venice — subject to frequent flooding, according to a leading American archaeologist.

Professor Albert Ammerman, who was educated in Britain and is known for his work on the archaeology of Venice as well as the origins of the Roman Forum, says that he has established that the Tiber “was not where it is today. It was a much broader river, stretching to the foot of Capitol Hill. This means that we have to completely rethink our idea of early Rome”.

Professor Ammerman’s discovery shows that “a traveller approaching Rome in the Republican era — say at the time of the Punic Wars — would have seen an astonishing sight: the Temple of Jupiter towering above him on Capitol Hill, but also a line of other great temples on the river bank, appearing to rise out of the water.”

The remains of the riverside temples are now marooned in a busy thoroughfare 100 yards back from the present Tiber embankment, “and we tend to assume that that was pretty much the case in ancient times too. But, in fact, the river was where the road now is, right under Capitol Hill,” he says. . .

Under his Italian assistant, Dunia Filippi, Ammerman’s team may also have solved one of the the great remaining mysteries of ancient Rome: the site of the long-lost Temple of the Deified Augustus, erected after the death of Augustus, the first Emperor, who was hailed as a god.

The team found a massive travertine platform with a cemented basalt foundation 11-metre deep, by drilling in the courtyard of the present Rome police headquarters. “It could be the Temple of Minerva, which has never been found either, but my money is on the Temple of Augustus,” he says. “It’s certainly the mother of all temple foundations.”

Posted by David on May 20, 2003 5:25 PM