The Roman Settlement at Fiesole
Ancient Roman Remains near Florence, Tuscany, Italy
The Etruscan settlement at Fiesole was conquered by the Romans in 90BC. The town was taken by the troops of Marcus Portius Cato after a lengthy siege using a nearby encampment as a base. That camp later became the city of Florence.
The conquest of Fiesole was destructive and saw much of the Etruscan town burnt to the ground. Archaeologists have discovered that after a period of abandonment, the Etruscan walls and one of the temples were rebuilt along Roman lines. The site was then fully reoccupied as a Roman town. Finds have small household objects have been recovered from the site. Its theatre and bath house also remain.
The Roman Theatre
Built into the natural rocks of one of the town’s hills, the roman theatre has been extensively restored but still remains one of the best preserved buildings in Fiesole. It was built shortly after the reoccupation of the site in the first century BC and was situated along the Cardo, one of the Roman town’s main streets that led to the forum.
The structure and layout of the theatre still remain visible on the site. The best seats in the house, situated near the orchestra and tribunalia arcades were reached by a series of vaulted passages that ran under the cavea or rows of seats. Several flights of stairs that ran up through the cavea could be used for seating elsewhere. Each stairway consisted of three flights of ten steps. The original right hand staircase of the theatre still survives today.
Of the frons scenae or stage area only the foundations remain. These are sufficient to show the three doors actors used to access the stage. Of the behind scenes area, the most interesting area to survive is a semi circular room that would have been used to operate the mechanism that opened the theatre’s curtain.
The theatre was redecorated in the third century AD. Of its ornamentation, only a few fragments of the multicoloured orchestra mosaics remains as well as marble reliefs of mythical scenes and deities, preserved in the site’s museum.
The Roman Baths
The roman baths have been much more extensively restored than the theatre. Little decorative material has been recovered apart from some bronze sheets of epigrams and the marble base of a statue of Hercules recovered from the tepidarium.
The baths were divided into an internal and external area. The interior bathhouse followed the typical Roman pattern. It consisted of a caldarium with an opus signimum floor and was equipped with 3 small pools. It was heated by 2 furnaces. The brick under floor hypocaust pillars used to heat the floor survive.
The tepidarium was heated by one furnace. This led straight into the oldest room, the frigidarium. This room was subdivided into three, with a semi circular plunge pool to the left. The toilets were situated behind the frigidarium.
Outside, the bath house had two pools divided by a central room or cryptoporticus. One served as a plunge pool, the other as a swimming pool. Both offered excellent views of the territory of Fiesole.
Sources
Fiesole: Archaeological Site and Museum (1999) Marco de Marco. Giunti Gruppo Editorial: Fiesole
The Roman Bath House, Fiesole
|
What do you think about this article?
More in History
Latest Articles