The Roman Theatre of Sessa Aurunca, uncovered and restored between 1999 and 2003, is one of the most imposing public buildings of Roman age discovered so far in Campania. Built under the empire of Augustus in the 1st century AD, it was renovated and expanded in the 2nd century AD, under Antoninus Pius. Due to the grandeur of the remains and the value of the artifacts found, it is a tangible testimony to the power and interest of Rome towards Campania and Suessa in particular. The building, with walls preserved up to 20 meters in height, includes a cavea with a diameter of 110 meters, excavated into the hill and supported above by galleries, with three tiers of limestone seating that could host from 7,000 to 10,000 spectators. The remains of the structure that supported the velarium, used to protect spectators from the sun, are also substantial, as well as those of the large stage building, originally 40 meters long and 24 meters high, equipped with three superimposed orders of 84 columns. The stage constituted a true open-air museum where Roman artists and stonecutters used many types of marble to create the architectural decorations, consisting of friezes, architraves, and capitals. The columns were made from five different types of colored marbles, coming from the Greek islands, Numidia, and Egypt, while the architraves and capitals were carved from white marble from Carrara and Athens. An extraordinary series of finds also consists of dedicatory and commemorative inscriptions, as well as numerous fragments of sculptures that decorated the theatre, belonging to the gallery where members of the imperial family were celebrated, such as the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, and their wives Plotina and Sabina; the colossal statues of Livia and Agrippina the Elder. From the sacellum in the summa cavea also come the sculptures of Matidia the Elder, Sabina, Plotina, and Matidia the Younger. Behind the stage building developed the porticus post scaenam, for spectators to rest during the intervals of the shows. On its sides stood two basilica-plan rooms, the southern one frescoed and equipped with a nymphaeum, the northern one with a crypta connected to the extra-urban road network, near whose entrance is a sacellum with the fresco of the Genius loci. Attached to it was built in the 3rd century AD a latrine with a tessellated floor and marble wall coverings. Not far from the theatre on the terrace to the west of the ancient city, near the Forum, stands the cryptoporticus, probably a public-use building that overlooked an open area paved in opus spicatum, where it is hypothesized a sacellum once stood. This monument, probably used for public purposes, and for its construction characteristics seems to date back to the Sullan or late Sullan age. The cryptoporticus is arranged in three arms, divided into two naves separated by rows of pillars and covered by barrel vaults, illuminated by splayed windows. The walls retain white stucco cladding with raised architectural frames, attributable to the early decades of the 1st century AD, on which interesting graffiti with poets’ names and Virgilian verses are inscribed, also suggesting use of the building as a school. Also near the theatre, in the area of the current Porta Cappuccini, a vast extra-urban residential villa was recently discovered and explored, perhaps belonging to Matidia, equipped with a pars rustica including a torcularium for wine production, and a pars urbana, the residential quarters. Built in opus incertum in the 2nd century BC, renovated in opus reticulatum between the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, it was further remodeled in the 2nd century AD before abandonment.
Information on Roman Theatre and Cryptoporticus of Sessa Aurunca
Via Aldo Moro
81037 Sessa Aurunca (Caserta)
0823.936455 (Archaeological Office of Sessa Aurunca); 0823.972130 (Archaeological Office of Mondragone)
sar-cam.mondragone@beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
