Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavius ??Augustus, was the man who founded the Roman Empire and its first emperor. The four decades of his reign are associated with the beginning of the imperial cult and the well-known Pax Romana, a long period of stability that allowed Rome to achieve its maximum territorial expansion and great economic development.
Augustus died on August 19, 14 AD in Nola, a municipality in the south of the Italian peninsula, on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Apennines. The emperor, who had been ill for years, was visiting the place where his father had died. Written sources claim that his last words were: “The comedy is over. Clap your hands!”
Nola, in the Campania region of southwestern Italy, would go unnoticed for centuries. Not even the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. gave him a special prominence. For a long time historians thought that only the southern areas of the volcano, with Pompeii and Herculaneum in the lead, had suffered serious damage. But everything changed after 1929.
It was a hundred years ago when a farmer accidentally discovered part of an abandoned building buried in a field in the Somma Vesuviana valley. The first excavations revealed an extravagant villa that clearly hinted that it was the residence of Augustus. However, a lack of financial resources at the time prevented further exploration of the site.
It was not until 2002 when work was resumed thanks to a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo. Now, that same group of archaeologists, led by Kohei Sugiyama, has discovered new parts of this Roman villa built in the mid-1st century.
“Excavations around Mount Vesuvius have been ongoing since the 18th century. It was known that several Roman remains lay buried beneath the ashes and debris of the largest eruption in 79 AD,” says the expert at Mount Vesuvius. Institute for Advanced Global Studies, University of Tokyo.
In the last twenty years many Roman objects have been revealed, beautiful marble statues (including two pieces suitable enough to be displayed in a museum), a huge building with several rooms, wall paintings, stucco reliefs and mosaics.
“Most exploration related to the eruption of Vesuvius focuses on the southern regions of the volcano, as this is where most of the pyroclastic flow fell and the greatest damage was suffered. We have excavated large sections of this village located to the north and we have recently discovered some previously unknown rooms and other architectural elements,” says Sugiyama.
“Using radiocarbon dating – he adds – and with the help of volcanologists we determined that these newly discovered sections are buried under volcanic material from the eruption of 79 AD.” Work on the house revealed that the old construction had been ‘hidden’ beneath a more recent building from the 2nd century AD.
Japanese archaeologists needed heavy machinery to dig up to 15 meters and move large rocks. But they found significant destruction in the territory north of Vesuvius, including damage from lava flows and pyroclastic surges, the large explosions you see people fleeing from in movies about volcanoes.
This finding indicates, specialists point out, the resilience and reconstruction efforts of the people after the disaster in the Somma Vesuviana area, unlike Pompeii, where thick layers of volcanic ash and pyroclastic flows left the city abandoned for many centuries. .
“This type of research not only connects the physical evidence to Augustus, who is known primarily through historical writings, but also tells us about the local economy and society in the region at the time, which may have been more prosperous. and significant than previously thought,” concludes Sugiyama.
