The article Of Scipio's helmet published in La Repubblica last August 26, the last stage of Paolo Rumiz's journey in the footsteps of Hannibal, highlighted the historical-archaeological importance of the Liternum site, generally identified as the tomb of Scipio Africanus.
The Municipal Administration of Giugliano followed with interest and enthusiasm the entire path outlined by the journalist, to whom it recognizes the merit of having drawn attention to the ruins of the ancient Roman colony whose physiognomy was distorted by an intense, wild, often illegal building expansion. This is a situation of alarming degradation which involves the entire area and which is evidenced by the insufficiency, if not the complete absence, of adequate road signs.
Yet in the Tabula Peutingeriana, written in the 3rd – 4th century. AD, Liternum is depicted as a location of extreme importance for communications between Campania and Latium. From a marshy and unhealthy place, known from ancient sources as Literna Palus, subject due to its geographical position - at the southern end of the gulf of Gaeta near the mouth of the ancient Clanis - to silting up and the consequent contraction of arable land, Liternum became an important Roman colony immediately after the Hannibal wars. Precisely in the years in which Scipio held the consulate for the second time, the city was the subject of a law proposal, advanced by the tribune Gaius Attinius, to establish a military colony there to defend and strengthen the coast. In 194 BC the sending of three hundred settler families definitively sanctioned its establishment. The reasons for the choice of the site, which alongside those of Volturnum, Puteoli, Buxentum should have created a connection network along the Campania coast, were of a military and strategic nature given the possibility of quickly reaching both Capua and Rome. And yet, the fame of Liternum is linked above all to the figure of Africanus who, having left Rome in voluntary exile, following suspicions and more or less explicit accusations of appropriation of public money, spent the last years of his life there. Hence the tradition of the presence of his tomb in Liternum reported by the couplet of the poet Ennius who underlined the impossibility of adequately rewarding the greatness of the merits of the man who had freed Italy from the Carthaginian danger. And subsequent historiographical tradition agrees in describing Scipio's life in bitter tones during his exile in the villa-fortress of Liternum whose description, in Seneca's epistle 86, highlights his severe and almost gloomy appearance, an expression of the ancient lifestyle characterized by sobriety and moderation in opposition to contemporary degradation. It was, in fact, a building made of square stones with defense towers and a surrounding wall and with a small dark bathroom in which Scipio washed the sweat of work in the fields.
Liternum therefore became sadly famous for its solitude of sand and swamps which served as the backdrop to the last moments of Scipio's life. Despite the serious problems of a hydraulic nature, of disposal of river and rainwater, the small colony - as emerges from the archaeological remains - lived not only on fishing and agriculture, but also on local artisanal production linked to the processing of glass obtained from the abundance and excellent quality of the sand on the coast. The importance of the site was enhanced in the 1st century. A.D. in the years in which Domitian was in power when the Via Domitiana - which takes its name from the emperor - was built following the expansion and paving of the coastal stretch that started from Sinouessa and headed towards Cuma through Volturnum and Liternum, culminating in Puteoli. The work was celebrated by the poet Statius as an expression of the greatness of Rome which made its road system the fundamental structural component through which to deploy dominion over the conquered territories, removed from the wild nature and acquired by the empire through the activity of the gromatics and the imposition of the milestones.
Of the history and archeology of Liternum from the 2nd to the 4th century. A.D. little is known: the progressive swamping and consequent abandonment of the city caused its inexorable decline followed by its definitive abandonment due to the invasion of the Vandals of Genserico which led to the migration of the surviving population towards Giugliano.
The first archaeological investigations conducted at Liternum were the work of A. Maiuri who dedicated himself there from 1932 to 1937 with the collaboration of the Royal Honorary Inspector of Monuments Giacomo Chianese.
An important complex of buildings emerged from the ruins, located on the left side of the external ring road, between the motorway and Lake Patria. In the Forum, rectangular in shape, crossed from north to south by the Via Domitiana, which was the cornerstone of the city, and closed on three sides by a large portico, there stood an Italic-type temple with a high podium which still retains traces of the primitive temple dating back to the years of the establishment of the colony. The building was flanked by two other buildings: the Basilica, where the political and administrative life of the colony took place, and the Theater of modest dimensions and elliptical shape whose remains present elements of the summa cavea.
Furthermore, next to the Roman town, traces of an early Christian basilica have emerged near the "Varcaturiello" estate, the construction of which, despite the lack of a precise stratigraphic investigation, dates back to the 5th century. B.C. The tombs of S. Fortunata and her brothers who arrived in Campania from Caesarea in Palestine were preserved in it. The building, whose plan indicates that it belongs to the rare type of basilicas with two apses, was located outside the walls of Liternum, in the area of the main necropolis of the city and was built at a time when the maintenance of the Roman road was no longer cared for as part of the paving of the Domitiana was used as the floor of the church. The cult of the martyr has been attested on an epigraphic level since the 4th century. A.D. the marble flooring of the theater orchestra also dates back to the period for which inscriptions from the Severan period relating to the college of the Augustals were reused. The only literary testimony of this period, a letter from Pope Pelagius I, confirms the existence of a Christian community with its bishop still in the 6th century. A.D.
Based on this quick review, the extreme scientific interest of Liternum is evident, which does not end in the simple but also significant role of the second home of the winner of Zama.
And in fact, the Municipal Administration of Giugliano, aware of the importance of the site and sensitive to the need for its protection, has launched in agreement with the Archaeological Superintendency of Naples and Caserta, a recovery and redevelopment project of the area aimed at the creation of the Park and the Archaeological Museum of Liternum. Furthermore, for a better use of the area by scholars, tourists or ordinary citizens interested in the recovery and conservation of their historical and cultural identity, the installation of new road signs and the improvement of the existing ones is also envisaged.
Of the planned interventions, financed with regional funds (POR Campania years 2000 - 2006) and municipal resources, the Administration has already contracted the works relating to the I and II lots which concern the creation of an archaeological park, works which are already in the executive phase.
The third lot, of which at the moment only the planning phase has been finalised, is instead related to the creation of an archaeological museum intended to house the numerous finds found which, through an adequate didactic apparatus, can be returned to the contexts of origin and the different phases of development of the city. The museum should be built on an area designated as an archaeological zone and currently occupied by an illegal construction, following demolition of the latter. This is an ambitious and far-reaching project that requires a huge use of human and financial resources, as well as adequate implementation times.
When reading the article of August 26, therefore, it would have been all too simple to limit oneself to a sterile list of the rhetorical places of a my faultor vice versa, point the finger at those who, in the past, through indifference, disinterest or even worse, connivance, have perpetuated and aggravated the already precarious situation of the Liternum excavations. Responsibility and commitment should be widespread attitudes. For this reason, the fair criticisms expressed by Paolo Rumiz, although immediately greeted with displeasure and disappointment, have become, as we hope was the author's intention, a cause for paranesis.
Councilor for Territorial Redevelopment
Armando Di Nardo