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A metropolis razed by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago after its multitude rebelled was destroyed so mischievously that it " remained uninhabited for over 170 years , " until it was repurposed into an ancient landfill , accord to archaeologists who hollow the ancient site in Italy .
The ruins at Fregellae , about 55 miles ( 90 kilometers ) southeast of Rome , date from the military blockade and devastation of the city by Roman USA in 125 B.C.
The archaeologists are excavating a villa at Fregellae that was built about 80 years before the city was besieged and burned down by the Romans in 125 B.C.
The reason for the rebellion is n’t eff , but archaeologists think it was because the people of Fregellae had take full Romanic citizenship , instead of the " second - pace " citizenship — with few legal right , especially regarding the possession of public lands — that they had been granted by theRoman Republic . This long - running contravention culminated in theSocial Warroughly a multiplication later , from 91 to 87 B.C. , when many of Rome ’s allies in Italy demanded — and received — full Roman citizenship .
But there are few surviving historical record from the metre of the Fregellae uprising , so archeologic cogitation are the best bet for set what happened there , saidDominik Maschek , a professor of popish archaeology at theLeibniz Centre for Archaeologyand Trier University , both in Germany .
" It is only mentioned in two or three sources , " Maschek told Live Science . " We hear about the siege , they tell us these people rebelled against the Romans , but we do n’t recognize why . "
The archaeologists think several large pottery storage vessels discovered at the site were probably used for agricultural produce like wine, grain and fruit.(Image credit: Anton Ritzhaupt/LEIZA)
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Roman villa
Maschek explain that Italian archeologist first excavate the situation in the 1980s and get a line the clay of wall painting , storey mosaics , houses and public baths .
He and a team of researcher from Germany , Italy , and Switzerland have been excavating a villa on the border of the ancient urban center for the retiring three years ; and last twelvemonth they also find oneself the stiff of a nearby Roman military camp , which was protect by a fortified paries and a fosse .
Among the artifacts found at the villa site are large pottery vessels for salt away farm green groceries . These and ancient germ unearthed at the site signal the villa was an farming middle that produced wine , yield and food grain , probably for export to other part and perhaps overseas , Maschek said . Records of likewise sized romish Francisco Villa intimate that up to 50 masses may have worked there , many of them enslaved .
The villa is the oldest found in the region and the archaeologists hope their excavations will shed more light on the city’s destruction.(Image credit: Dominik Maschek/LEIZA)
But a layer of flaming damage exhibit the Doroteo Arango and the crop in its theater of operations were put down at the same sentence as the neighboring city , he said — a determination support by the " smoking gun " of clayware fragments from the time of the revolt .
Ancient allies
Fregellae was founded as a colony city of Rome , but it seems to have included many people descend from the Samnites , a non - Roman peoplewho originally lived in the region and were ab initio enemy of the Roman Republic .
Maschek noted that the issue of Samnite relocating to Fregellae had been discussed by the papistical Senate about 60 eld before the rebellion , but the Senate decide that the metropolis of Fregellae should deal with the inflow itself .
" The [ Samnite ] families who move to Fregellae obviously thought that they would be better to hold up in the metropolis with second - pace Roman citizenship , because at least they then had some sort of relationship with Rome , " he said .
Many of the many pottery fragments found at the site date from several years after the destruction of the city, and indicate that the villa’s ownership had changed by that time.(Image credit: Anton Ritzhaupt/LEIZA)
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Seeds and plant remains from the excavations at the villa site show the cultivation of wine and other farming produce.(Image credit: Anton Ritzhaupt/LEIZA)
The few diachronic criminal record from the time describe how Fregellae was besieged and destroy by a papist army commanded by Lucius Opimius , a praetor of the Roman Republic . This billet was an elected magistrate but below the two elect consulswho headed the United States Department of State .
It seems that the people of Fregellae had waited until Rome ’s two consul were command Roman United States Army overseas before they part their rebellion , Maschek said , perhaps hop-skip the Romans would discover it hard to send yet another army .
" They were not stunned . They had been fighting alongside the Romans for a long time , so they knew how Roman candidature worked , " he say . " But they probably had n’t reckoned with the fact that the Romans would still have praetors . "
