AQUINUM
(Aquino) Frosinone, Latium, Italy.
In the Liri valley 4.8 km N-NE of Pontecorvo, this
town in antiquity was a Volscian city on the ancient Via
Latina. It entered into the Roman sphere of influence in
313 B.C., and the population probably had Roman citizenship after the social war. The first reference to the city
dates to 63 B.C. (Cic.
Fam. 13.76). It was a colony under
Caesar or under the Triumvirate (Plin.
HN 3.63;
Lib.
Colon. 229). Its position topographically is characterized
by the presence of three lakes, now dry, which were fed
by the Melfa river and irregularly divided the whole E
flank of the valley (Vallone d'Aquino). The city was on
one lake and a ditch into which water from the lakes was
diverted enclosed the city on its other three sides. The
inhabited area developed on the plain; and the network
of streets, taking the urban stretch of the Via Latina as
its axis, is regular but not orthogonal, for the intersections
of the streets are oblique and the city blocks rhomboidal.
Several stretches of the city walls, in polygonal work, remain visible. Besides these, the monuments which have
been noted include the so-called Capitolium in opera
quadrata with a Doric frieze, the remains of a theater,
a bath building, and an amphitheater. Aerial photographs
have revealed, besides the outlines of numerous roads, an
accumulation of structural remains belonging to large
buildings. In the suburban area is a triumphal arch with
a single span. In the territory around Aquinum are abundant remains of centuriation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Cagiano De Azevedo, “Aquinum,”
Italia Romana: Municipi e Colonie, ser. I, vol. IX (1947);
F. Castagnoli,
RendLinc (1956) 376ff; G. Cressedi,
EAA
1 (1958) 552 (G. Cressedi); C. F. Giuliani,
Quaderni Ist.
Topografia Antica Univ. Roma, I (1964) 41ff; F. Coarelli, ibid. 51ff; G. Schmiedt,
Atlante aerofotografico delle sedi umane in Italia, II (1970), tav. cv, 3.
C. F. GIULIANI
