Castrum Novum

Castrum Novum (new fort) is an ancient Roman town, located in the municipality of Santa Marinella, to the north of Cape Linaro, ca.

Since 2010, archaeological investigation has been resumed by the Gruppo Archeologico del Territorio Cerite (GATC) which shed new light on the topography and the history of the site.

But in 191 BC it took part in the revolt against the praetor Gaius Livy, who intended to impose naval levies on the maritime colonies when Rome needed soldiers for the Roman–Seleucid War.

[12] In the imperial era it grew into a town with a theatre, a curia, an archive (tabularium), an altar sacred to Apollo and an aqueduct, as inscriptions show.

From inscriptions found in Santa Marinella we know of the existence of decuriones (members of the colony's senate), duumviri quinquennales (supreme magistrates of the city), Augustales (priests of the imperial cult), magistri vici (local administrators).

Masonry in opus reticulatum and brick, floors and sewers are visible in land exposed by erosion along the beach, for a long stretch below the modern stilt houses.

[17] At km 66 on the Via Aurelia at Punta della Vipera, large, partially submerged fishtanks can be seen, in good condition, built on stone banks outcropping from the sea.

Several walls in opus mixtum and brick, traces of mosaic floors, capitals and marble decorations document the richness and extension of the villa connected to the ancient Via Aurelia and overlooking the fishtank below.

[20] Intended for fish and shellfish farming and probably built at the end of the 1st century BC, the fishponds are divided into several rectangular tanks distributed around a large central circular basin of over 20 m in diameter.