CUGNO DEI VAGNI
Matera, Lucania, Italy.
A large Roman villa and vicus on the last ridge of the
hills descending from Rotondella toward the plain that
extends along the right bank of the Sinai river (ancient
Sins). The villa and the vicus occupied a zone of Hellenistic farm settlements which are documented by antefixes of the Tarentine-Heraklean type dating to the second half of the 4th c. B.C. On the slope of the terrace is
set the bath complex. Its calidarium had a polychrome
mosaic of the Imperial period. The entire complex obtained its water through terracotta conduits from a spring
above it, which also supplied the villa.
The villa underwent various reconstructions, but the
earliest section is known to have been built in opus incertum bordered in brickwork. As elsewhere in S Italy,
such construction methods may be dated to the beginning
of the 1st c. A.D. The best comparison is with the monuments of Grumentum, particularly with the amphitheater
dated to the early years of the 1st c. A.D.
Until the 2d c. A.D., a vicus clustered around this central complex and spread over the upper terrace for more
than 200 m. This arrangement is found everywhere but
particularly in S Italy at the beginning of the Empire
(Front.,
Gromatica, II, p. 53, 7-9 ed. Lachmann). While
the vicus continued to exist after the 2d c. A.D., the villa
was abandoned immediately after a series of very expensive reconstructions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Lenormant,
La Grande Grèce: Paysage et histoire, I (1881) 212-14; M. Lacava, “Sul sito
dell'antica Siri,”
Arte e Storia (1889) 17-20; U. Kahrstedt,
Historia (1959) 100-1, 203; L. Quilici,
Siris-Heraclea (Forma Italiae, Regio III, vol. s; 1967) 123-32.
D. ADAMESTEANU
