Lago di Patria (or
Lago Patria) is a 25-km drive north of Naples. In ancient
times, it was fed directly by the Clanius river. That
river, however, was diverted somewhat to the north in the
1600s (mentioned below as the Regi Lagni project); today, the lake
still has some underground freshwater sources as well as
abundant rain run-off but since it has a direct outlet to
the sea (photo, right) it also takes in saltwater. Since
1999 the 2-sq km lake has been part of the protected Foce Volturno nature reserve,
but the signs of decades of earlier overbuilding are
everywhere and, indeed, beyond the confines of the
reserve, new buildings grow like toadstools.
[Update: Dec. 2012—Development includes
the site of the new Joint Force Command (JFC) NATO
Headquarters on the shore of the lake. It was
inaugurated on Dec. 13. The HQ had been in the Naples
suburb of Bagnoli for 50 years.]
It is
difficult to see the area for what it was historically
—meaning at the time of the Romans. I don't mean Imperial
Rome, but rather a time well before the beautiful toga
people of the first century BC started enjoying local
thermal waters and dotting the local coastline with
luxurious villas. It was a time when Rome was still
battling mortal enemies from Carthage and at the same time
trying to consolidate a hold on the peninsula. The
Campanian coast, in particular, was a very difficult area
of long conflict over centuries among many contenders:
Greeks, Etruscans, Romans and Italic tribes such as the Samnites.
The second Punic War ended in 202 BC with the
Roman victory over Hannibal at the Battle of Zama (in
modern-day Tunisia). The Roman commander was Scipio
Africanus (236–183 BC) (pictured), so-called
because he had invaded North Africato fight
Hannibal—and had won. (This was shortly after he had
defeated Carthaginian forces in Hispania, securing that
territory for Rome. He is viewed as one of the greatest
military commanders in history.) Rome was then free to
focus on the southern Italian peninsula. That entailed not
just solidifying its hold on the large former Greek cities
such as Neapolis (which would not become a Roman
principality for another century), but founding new
smaller Roman colonies throughout the south. In 194 BC,
Rome sent out founding colonists to settle and protect
five coastal sites in Campania: Volturnum, Puteoli
(Pozzuoli), Salernum, Buxentum (Policastro Bussentino,
well south of Salerno), and, the case in point, Liternum.
The Liternum colony was roughly in the area circled in the
photo (above). The new Roman settlers were largely
veterans of the second Punic war, experience that would
serve them in defending the coast from enemy fleets and
pirates. Livy tells us that shortly thereafter, in 184 BC,
the brilliant general who had secured the future of Rome,
Scipio Africanus, was accused of bribery and quit public
life in disgust. He moved to Liternum to live out his
life, thus becoming the first distinguished Roman to have
owned a "country estate" in the south. Sources say that he
was held in such awe that pirate marauders would stop by,
not to maraud, mind you, but just to see the man who had
defeated Hannibal. Scipio died in Liternum at the age of
52 and is said to have willed this inscription to be
placed on his tomb: Ingrata
patria, ne ossa quidem habebis—"Ungrateful
motherland, you will not even have my bones." That cannot
be confirmed since his tomb has never been found.
(The original
Liternum and property of Scipio Africanus were on the
shore of the lake, near where the lake empties into the
sea, and have nothing in common with the modern town of
Villa Literno, 10 km to the north. That was an anonymous
group of dwellings that by decree got upgraded to "Villa
Literno" in 1927 as a stop on the new Rome-Naples train
line. For the name of a new train station, it somehow
sounded better than Vico di Pantano —literally, Swamp
Alley!— the original name of the dump.)
Liternum
enjoyed renown just by association with Scipione (somewhat
like Napoleon and Elba, I imagine). The colony did well,
also, in the Age of Augustus thanks to new settlers in the
year 31 AD and the construction of the Domitiana road that
made Liternum a major stopping point on this new main route
from Rome to Naples. In the 5th century AD the area
gradually swamped up and the original settlement
disappeared. The area was a reserve of a local Benedictine
order in the Middle Ages and profited from land reclamation
as part of the Regi Lagni
system of canals started by the Spanish in the early 1600s.
In 1932 and again immediately after WWII significant
excavation was done by archaeologist, Amedeo
Maiuri, at the site. He uncovered the remains of the
forum with its capitolium (temple dedicated to Jupiter), the
basilica and theater, ruins of dwellings and roads, the
remains of a portico, of a thermal complex and an
amphitheater. Most recently, in 2009, there were additional
finds, many of which wound up in the Baia Archaeological
Museum in the Liternum Room. Unfortunately, that museum is
currently in an open-again closed-again limbo due to lack of
funding. Since 2009 the area has been part of the Liternum
archaeological park, an area of some 85.000 sqm (c.20 acres)
that may be visited. Recent accounts in the papers say that
a group of archaeology students from the Freie
Universität in Berlin have requested permission to
explore the site further.
souces:
D'Arms, John H. "The First Coastal Villas, The Second
Century B.C." in Romans
on the Bay of Naples and other Essays on Roman Campania.
Edipuglia, Bari. 2003.
Maiuri, Amedeo. "Liternum" in Passeggiate Campane. Rusoni, Milan.
1990.