More than 2,000 years ago, a Roman city was flattened following a rebellion, becoming so heavily destroyed that it remained “uninhabited for over 170 years” until it was turned into an ancient landfill, according to archaeologists who excavated this ancient site in Italy.
The ruins at Fregellae, located about 90 kilometers southeast of Rome, date back to the siege and destruction of the city by the Roman army in 125 BCE.
The reasons behind the rebellion are unknown, but archaeologists suggest it was due to the people of Fregellae demanding full Roman citizenship instead of the “second-class” citizenship they were granted by the Roman Republic, which came with fewer legal rights, particularly regarding public land ownership.
This long-standing dispute culminated in a war about a generation later, from 91 to 87 BCE, when many Roman allies in Italy demanded and received full Roman citizenship.
Archaeologists excavating a villa in Fregellae, built approximately 80 years before the city was besieged and burned by the Romans in 125 BCE (Image: Dominik Maschek/LEIZA)
However, very few historical documents remain from the Fregellae Rebellion, making archaeological studies the best option to determine what transpired there, said Dominik Maschek, a professor of Roman archaeology at the Leibniz Center for Archaeology and the University of Trier in Germany.
Ancient Roman Villa
Maschek explained that Italian archaeologists first excavated this site in the 1980s and discovered the remains of frescoes, mosaics, residential buildings, and public baths.
He and a group of researchers from Germany, Italy, and Switzerland have been excavating a villa on the outskirts of the ancient city for the past three years; last year, they also found the remains of a nearby Roman military camp, protected by a solid wall and a moat.
Among the artifacts found at the site believed to be the villa are large ceramic jars for storing agricultural products. These items and ancient seeds unearthed at the site indicate that the villa served as an agricultural center producing wine, fruit, and grains, possibly for export to other regions and abroad. Records of similar Roman villas suggest that as many as 50 people may have worked here, many of whom were enslaved.
However, he noted that a layer of fire damage indicates that the villa and its crops were destroyed at the same time as the neighboring city—a finding bolstered by evidence of pottery fragments from the time of the rebellion.
Ancient Allies
Fregellae was a Roman colony, but it appears that it included many people who were descendants of the Samnites, a non-Roman people who originally inhabited this region and were initially enemies of the Roman Empire.
Maschek noted that the issue of the Samnites relocating to Fregellae was discussed by the Roman Senate about 60 years before the rebellion, but the Senate decided that the city of Fregellae had to resolve the influx of people on its own.
