Another benefit for my stay in Terni was a visit to Carsulae, an abandoned (pre-)Roman city near Terni. We have a lot of ancient remains here in Italy that we don’t mind them. So much history and so lack of interest in it. Even if I love archaeology I never considerate a visit to this site, but now I’m pleased to have did it.

This is a part of the old route of the Via Flaminia inside Carsulae. This road joins Rome with Ariminum (present Rimini), and therefore the two sides of Italy, sea to sea, through mountains. It was the way to have a road for the north, the other sea, and to control the territory even against Italic Celts. Now when I hear about Via Flaminia I only think about car traffic. In this photo you can view no congestion, luckily.

As remains you can view only some structures, mainly building foundations. I suppose that the walls were used centuries after to built other houses around: walls can fall after years without maintenance, and their bricks and rocks are available building material to all near communities. Probably you could find Carsulae inside the walls of later little towns that were born around.

The most evident buildings are the amphitheatre and the theatre, symbols of Roman civilization and necessary to a city to have a sporting identity and a cultural life. The last three photos taken from various angles are dedicated to them. You can see the stage and the bleachers with their structures, formed of walls made of white stones with narrow lines made of red bricks. The city is not entirely archaeologically investigated and large areas are still buried by the earth accumulated over the centuries, so in the future they could find more materials. The arena is partially excavated, its half is still filled with an earth mound and trees over it. It think they could find subterranean structures. An instructive and enjoyable visit under a spring sun.

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