PISAURUM
(Pesaro) Italy.
A Roman citizen
colony founded in 184 B.C. on the Umbrian coast of the
Adriatic at the mouth of the Pisaurus; it lies on the right
bank of the river in a small plain between two spurs of
the Apennines. It was a sister colony of Potentia in
Picenum, founded the same year and with the same
tresviri: Q. Fabius Labeo, M. Fulvius Flaccus, and Q.
Fulvius Nobilior. A prehistoric necropolis (Novilara)
has been discovered nearby, showing that the area was
inhabited at least from the Early Iron Age. But the
Roman city has its own plan, castrum-like, with a rectangular grid of streets, and a forum at the center near
the crossing of arteries. Each colonist received six jugera
of land (
Livy 39.44.10); the colony was inscribed in the
Tribus Camilia. Its most famous son was the tragic poet
Accius (b. 170 B.C.).
Apparently the colony did not thrive, despite its situation on the Via Flaminia. It may have received a Sullan
colony. Cicero (
Sest. 9) speaks of it as a hotbed of discontent and full of men ready to join the Catilinarian
conspiracy; Catullus (81.3) describes it as “moribunda”
in the early fifties. It was briefly occupied by Caesar after
the crossing of the Rubicon (
BCiv. 1.11.4). It received a
colony of Antony's veterans after Philippi (Plut.
Vit.Ant.
60.2) and another of Augustus', after which it bore the
name colonia Iulia Felix Pisaurum. It is mentioned under
the Empire only by the geographers and reappears only
in the Gothic wars, when it was burnt and its walls destroyed by Vittigis and rebuilt in haste by Belisarius in 544 (Procop.
Goth. 3.11.32-34).
Of the walls of the ancient city enough has been traced
to permit reconstruction of their rectangular plan (488 x
394 m), with an inward bow toward the N gate, whence
the Via Flaminia issued. The base is of blocks of local
sandstone, probably the wall of the original colony; the
upper parts are a rebuilding in brick and mortar. Many
mosaics have been found, many inscriptions, and other
archaeological material, much of which is housed in
Pesaro's Museo Oliveriano (formerly Athenaeum). The
most famous of the finds is a bronze statue, the so-called
Idolino, in the Museo Archeologico in Florence.
Nothing is known of Pisaurum's port, though inscriptions inform us it was an active shipbuilding center.
There are noteworthy remains of an Augustan bridge
over the Pisaurus (Foglia) and another over the Metaurus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. Gazzola,
Ponti romani (1963) 2.68,
74-76; G. Annibaldi in
Atti del XI Congresso di Storia
dell'Architettura (1965) 46-47, 52-54; I. Zicari, “Pisaurum,”
RE II (1968).
E. RICHARDSON
