Unearthing a Forgotten Roman Town

Features January/February 2025

A stretch of Italian farmland concealed one of the small cities that powered the empire
Photo Courtesy Alessandro Launaro
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Sometime in the late first century b.c., a man by the name of Marcus Novius Tubula left the Italian countryside and moved to Rome. Tubula was from a town called Interamna Lirenas, located 75 miles southeast of the capital, and was chasing his dreams of something bigger. Tubula found political success and was elected as a tribune of the plebs, once one of the most important offices in Rome. To publicize his achievement to those back home, he had a limestone sundial erected in Interamna’s forum.

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