Ancient Roman sites
Nesactium
Nesactium was an ancient fortified town and hill fort of the Histri tribe. In pre-Roman times, Nesactium, ruled by its legendary king Epulon, was the capital of the tribal population of the peninsula called Histri, who were also connected to the prehistoric Castellieri culture. Some theories state a later Celtic influence, but who they were and where they came from has never been discovered for certain. It is believed tha ...
Founded: 9th century BCE |
Location:
Ližnjan, Croatia
Lorun
Lorun is an Antiquity archaeological site located next to the planned built tourist resort of Červar Porta. The remains of a Roman country villa, an estate consisting of the ceramics workshop, an oil mill and a water cistern were found, while the oldest villa doors coincide with the year 46 BC, the time of the establishment of the Poreč colony under the Caesar. Sisenna Statilie Tauro, a Roman consul for as many as 16 ye ...
Founded: 46 BCE |
Location:
Červar-porat, Croatia
Lacipo
Lacipo was founded in the second century BC for the local population. It grew considerably and its economic strength was based on olive oil. The town was a seat of government for the immediate area until it declined in the second century AD. The largest remain structure that can be seen today is a south facing section of town wall standing 30 feet high. Lacipo"s ruins don"t offer the traveler who can be bothered ...
Founded: 2nd century BCE |
Location:
Casares, Spain
Varignano Roman Villa
Varignano Roman Villa is an ancient Roman residence in Varignano, now a frazione of the town of Porto Venere. Its site is marked by an archaeological museum. Its first construction phase dates to the 1st century BCE and it mainly consisted of a house surrounded by a farm linked to olive oil production. The site is beside the Seno del Varignano Vecchio, overlooking the sea, near the santuario delle Grazie and, to the nort ...
Founded: 1st century BCE |
Location:
Porto Venere, Italy
Bribir
In the Roman period, the town (municipium) of Varvaria was created in the 1st century AD at the hill of Bribir (Bribirska glavica), which is now an archaeological site. Up until the Roman conquest, the Liburnians had inhabited the region, giving their name to the Roman province of Liburnia. Pliny the Elder mentioned Varvarini as one of 14 municipalities under the jurisdiction of Scardona (Skradin). In the Migra ...
Founded: 1st century AD |
Location:
Skradin, Croatia
Scupi
Scupi is an archaeological site where a Roman military camp was founded in the second century BC on the site of an older Dardanian settlement. It became later Colonia Flavia Aelia Scupi and many veteran legionnaires were settled there. A Roman town was founded in the time of Domitian (AD 81–96) and Scupi became the chief center for romanizing Dardania. Scupi was ravaged several times by barbarians, in AD 269 by the Go ...
Founded: 168 BCE |
Location:
Skopje, North Macedonia
Tauriana Archaeological Park
Tauriana or Taureana is an ancient city of the Bruttii which was located in the southern part of Calabria, in present Taurianova. The city, which stood on the south bank of the river Metauros (probably Petrace), marked the border of the territory of Reggio Calabria on the Tyrrhenian coast north-west, which began more than that of Locri. Later Roman and later Byzantine Tauriana was destroyed by the Saracens in the middl ...
Founded: 4th century BCE |
Location:
Palmi, Italy
Naniglio Roman Villa
Built in the late first century BC, the Villa of Naniglio reached its maximum splendour in the third century AD. The main attraction of the villa is a huge, well preserved water reservoir, comprised of a central nave and two lateral aisles. The Naniglio is an underground structure consisting of a central nave and two side aisles, with a ceiling made of crossed vaults supported on eight square columns arranged in two rows ...
Founded: 1st century AD |
Location:
Gioiosa Ionica, Italy
Centuripe Roman Bath
Centuripe was founded by Greeks in the 5th century BC, but the Imperial Roman age has left the most impressive monumental remains. Grandiose monumental ruins, a rich complex of sculptures, numerous inscriptions: a whole series of elements seem to mark the accomplishments of a local family that, in the 2nd century, came to express a consul, a son of one of the components of the entourage of the emperor Hadrian. A large num ...
Founded: 5th century BCE |
Location:
Centuripe, Italy
Mosynopolis
Mosynopolis , of which only ruins now remain in Greek Thrace, was a city in the Roman province of Rhodope, which was known until the 9th century as Maximianopolis. The city of Maximianopolis appears in written sources from the 4th century on. Its fortifications were renewed by Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and it was later a base for operations by Emperor Basil II in his wars against the Bulgarians. In the 11th century, ...
Founded: 4th century AD |
Location:
Komotini, Greece
Büßlingen Roman Villa
The Roman estate of Büßlingen is a restored and reconstructed villa rustica ( Roman estate) from the first century AD, which existed until at least the third century. The complex comprises nine excavated buildings on an area of 5.4 hectares. It is located south-southeast of Büßlingen, a district of Tengen in the Baden-Württemberg district of Konstanz in Germany. After the Villa rustica von Meßkirch , it ...
Founded: 1st century AD |
Location:
Tengen, Germany
Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Photo from Flickr, copyright Riccardo Ravelli
Historic Site of the week
Redipuglia World War I Memorial
Redipuglia is the largest Italian Military Sacrarium. It rises up on the western front of the Monte Sei Busi, which, in the First World War was bitterly fought after because, although it was not very high, from its summit it allowed an ample range of access from the West to the first steps of the Karstic table area.
The monumental staircase on which the remains of one hundred thousand fallen soldiers are lined up and which has at its base the monolith of the Duke of Aosta, who was the commanding officer of the third Brigade, and gives an image of a military grouping in the field of a Great Unity with its Commanding Officer at the front. The mortal remains of 100,187 fallen soldiers lie here, 39,857 of them identified and 60,330 unknown.