This is the Pantheon as we know it!  But a recent archaeological dig in Italy has revealed a Roman amphitheatre the size of the Pantheon at Portus, a major port which used to supply Rome and it’s legions.  This port now lies a good way inland close to the Fiumicino airport.

The excavation is being undertaken by a team of archaeologists from Italy with the assistance of experts from the Universities of Southampton and Cambridge and it’s believed this find may allow us to learn a little bit more about the life of the Emperor Trajan who ruled from 98AD to Ad117.

Although the site has over the years been excavated in part, it’s only now that this amphitheatre has been discovered.  It’s believed it would have held about 2,000 people and its design seems to indicate that it was used by the creme de la creme of Roman society, maybe even Trajan himself.

Portus, in its heyday was regarded as a significant civil engineering works and yet it’s not really until now that its finally getting the promotion it deserves.  The port spans about 2 km by 1 km and has a unique hexagonal harbour basin which itself is the size of a fairly hefty Roman city.  Just beyond Portus is another area which the archaeologists are finding to be quite exciting – Isola Sacra was an artificial island which Emperor Trajan created and on which is one of Italy’s best preserved Imperial Roman cemeteries.

Records show that the ruins of Portus have been studied on and off since the 16th century and the Isola Sacra necropolis was excavated in the 1930s but it’s only now with our modern equipment that the site has been shown in all its glory.

The construction of Portuswas originally put into place by Emperor Claudius in the first century AD but once Trajan took up the reins in the second century he decided to extend the port and arranged for the hexagonal harbour to be constructed along with various huge warehouses a bit further inland.  It was only then that Portus came into its own and became the main ‘through road’ for imports from the vast Roman Empire.  These imports included marble, glass, metalwork and food from Egypt, Africa and the Mediterranean.

Obviously finding it hard to sit there and twiddle his thumbs once he’d set up such a thriving community, Trajan developed a man made island and then built a road from Portus to the island and then a further road out to the adjacent city of Ostia and it was along this route that the necropolis was sited and eventually it became a huge cemetery.

Unfortunately, by the sixth century Portus had really had its day as Rome and the Mediterranean trade declined and so, over the years, the mausolea, paintings, sculptures etc etc fell into disrepair and eventually were buried by sand dunes.

Me thinks that if Trajan was around today, he’d have a helluva time playing Civilization on his PC!!!