ASTURA
(Torre Astura) Italy.
A small inhabited center on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Anzio and
Terracina. The river Astura is recorded by Livy (
8.13.5;
12) for the battle fought near it in 338 B.C. by the Consul Menius against the Latini and the Volsci. The island
of Astura is recorded particularly in the writings of the
geographers (
Strab. 5.3.232; Plin.
HN 3.57.81).
The center itself, called an oppidum only by Servius
(
Ad Aen. 7.801), is indicated as a way station on the
Via Severiana in the Itineraries. The major mention of
Astura appears in the letters written by Cicero to Atticus (12.9; 19.1; 40.2-3; 45.2; 13.21.3; 26.2; 34; 38.2;
14.2.4 etc.) in 45 and 44 B.C. when he retired to his
villa there after the death of his daughter Tullia, and
from which he embarked in 43 B.C. on a dramatic attempt
at flight (Cic.,
Att. 12.40.3). Astura is also mentioned
in the lives of Augustus and of Tiberius, both of whom
contracted grave illnesses there (Suet.,
Aug. 97;
Tib. 72).
While there remains no trace of the center, there are
remains of a villa. It must have been built on a tiny
island, today joined to the coast, while in ancient times
it was reached by a long bridge. Around the villa was
constructed a large protected fishpond on the sea. Its
articulated structure is well preserved. To it was annexed
a portico, of which there remain notable parts of two
wharves and the sea wall. The major part of these structures may be dated to the 1st and 2d c. A.D.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Nibby,
Analisi . . . della carta de' dintorni di Roma (2d ed., 1848) I, 266ff; L. Jacono,
“Note di archeologia Marittima,”
Neapolis 1 (1913)
363ff; M. Hofmann,
RE VIII (1956) 1228ff; F. Castagnoli, “Astura,”
Studi Romani 11 (1963) 637-44.
F. CASTAGNOLI
