Luna (Italy)

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Luna was a Roman colony founded in 177 BC. BC and is now near the place Luni Mare , a district of the municipality Ortonovo in the province of La Spezia , Italy . Through the nearby quarries of Carrara , where the famous Carrara marble is extracted, the city gained great economic importance and made the Roman monumental architecture possible. After the final silting up of the port, armed attacks and the spreading malaria , Luna , which had become the bishopric, was largely abandoned in the 11th century.

Location and research history

Luna and the neighboring cities on the Tabula Peutingeriana , the medieval copy of a Roman road map
Luni archaeological site with the museum in the background

The region around Luna is an old settlement area, the finds can be traced back to the Paleolithic . The city, which was planned from the very beginning, with its almost rectangular floor plan typical of Roman colonies, was founded on a plain extending between the Ligurian Sea and the Apuan Alps, almost at sea level. To the northeast is the present-day city of Carrara with the quarries that have been world-famous since ancient times , to the southwest is the Mediterranean Sea, on whose coast Luna was originally founded. The largest river in Liguria, the Magra , also flows to the sea in the southwest . The ancient river bed lay near the city and at this point had formed a natural harbor with a landscape terrace, which gradually silted up and changed its course over the centuries. Today the sea is also a good two kilometers away. Luna gave the Lunigiana landscape named after her its name.

The only ruins of which remains were still standing in the early 19th century were the amphitheater and the substructure of the Great Temple . The forum was discovered in 1837 and in 1964 the archaeological museum Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Luni was built on this site . In 1981 the museum's collection was reorganized. The largely undeveloped urban area has only been explored in small parts to this day, but no major excavations have taken place in the Archaeological Park since the early 1990s.

history

Antiquity

Luna and its transport links in ancient times.
Storage rooms in the area of ​​the "House of Frescoes", east of the forum.

Luna (Latin for moon , moon goddess ) was born in 177 BC. Built as a Roman military base on the northern edge of Etruria on the soil of the Apuani , one of the most important and militarily strongest Ligurian tribes, mentioned several times by the Roman historian Titus Livius . Since 187 BC BC, when the consul C. Flaminius had defeated the Apuanians for the first time, the emerging Rome expanded into this last, unoccupied part of northern Italy. The Apuani , who repeatedly advanced against the Romans from the security of the Apuan Alps, could only be overthrown in long-term military campaigns. The most important southern Roman parade grounds in this phase of the conquest were the 180 BC. Founded colonies of Pisa and Luca (today Lucca ). In the same year the occupiers deported around 40,000 Ligurian Apuans, mostly entire families, to central Italian Samnium , where they were resettled and later formed a flourishing community. A year later, another 7,000 displaced people followed. Luna was created shortly after the two foundations to the south, in order to further consolidate Roman rule in Liguria. 170 and 175 BC The Ligurian Apuans succeeded in devastating the city of Luna and the area of ​​the colony. Not until 155 BC In BC the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus was able to finally overthrow them and establish security for the residents of Luna. As a thank you, they erected a monument made of Lunensian marble. In 1851, he only excavated a column capital in which the name of Claudius Marcellus is carved. Should it actually be a contemporary account, it is considered the first work of Carrara marble , which has been used architecturally.

Already in the year 200 BC The then consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta had arranged to tackle the Via Aurelia Nova , a long-distance connection from Rome up the west coast to the north, to which Pisa was also connected. In 109 BC The censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus the Elder ordered the construction of the Via Aemilia Scaura , which Luna now merged with Placentia (now Piacenza ), among others . 106 BC The connection to Pisa to the Via Aurelia Nova followed . Another important transport connection was the road to Luca under Gaius Iulius Caesar . In addition to these highways, the city with its sea port Lunae portus already had the best conditions around the birth of Christ to organize the trade and sale of the raw product Lunense marble , which Pliny (Nat. Hist. 3, 50) already appreciated. In the time of Caesar, Lunensian marbles became an important part of the Roman building trade. The classical Roman design of the architecture was only possible after the development of Luna's marble quarries. But Lunenser cheese also gained great popularity in Rome.

After the Battle of Actium , 31 BC. BC, which finally secured the supremacy of Gaius Octavius in the Roman Empire, soldiers no longer needed were sent to the region of Luna as veterans and colonists in 2000. During the following reign of Emperor Augustus (31 BC to 14 AD) Luna was redesigned from an architectural and urban planning perspective. In the 2nd century, the Luna family of the Monetii (also: Munatii ) initiated the construction of the village of Moneta, which was built close to the Lunan marble quarries. In the same century, under the Antonine emperors, the amphitheater was built south of the city gates. On January 4, 275, Eutychianus , who came from Luna, was elected Pope and died a martyr's death on December 7, 283. The grave slab of the saint was found in the Catacomb of Calixtus near Rome. The extraordinary importance of Luna in the late 4th century underlines the establishment of a bishopric. One of these early bishops, Felix von Luna, is known as a member of the 465 synod held under Pope Hilary , which was held in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. In 409 Liguria was visited by the Visigoths . Nevertheless, the rich marble city also flourished in the 5th century. Rutilius Claudius Namatianus , politician and poet, describes Luna 416 as surrounded by white walls.

Byzantine period

In 552 Luna was freed from Ostrogothic domination during the reconquest of Italy by the Eastern Roman Empire under its general Narses . After the battle of Casilinus , which was victorious for Narses in 554, safe living conditions were restored. The city regained economic importance, especially through its port. The surfaces of the marble blocks brought in from the Apuan Alps were only roughly worked in Luna by workers and slaves in order to prepare them for shipping. Marble export flourished again. The Phocas column in the Forum Romanum from the year 608 AD is the last archaeologically secured Roman work made of Lunenian marble. The wealth of the Byzantine era is also evident from the history of the city itself. Bishop Venantius (593 - around 603) gave the monastery of Luna in 597 a two-pound, particularly large bowl made of silver.

Early and High Middle Ages

Pillar fragment with a diameter of 1.20 meters on the way to the excavation site

With the abrupt end of the Byzantine era of prosperity, one of the city's last great heydays came to an end. Between 569 and 774 the Lombards ruled over northern Italy and gradually displaced the Eastern Roman supremacy. Under their King Rothari , Duke of Brescia, the Germanic warriors conquered Liguria between 641 and 643. Luna seems to have preserved its independence or belonging to Byzantium for a more or less long time, like other cities on the Ligurian coast, but in these troubled times trade in the port almost completely came to a standstill. In 642 the coastal area from Luna to the border of the Franconian Empire at Ventimiglia was finally conquered by the Lombards. From now on, the city's changeful fortunes accelerated its decline dramatically. The time between 650 and the beginning of the 8th century researchers assign a short cold-humid climatic phase, which must also have had a bad effect on agriculture. There have been concerns about whether these effects might have accelerated urban decline. In 729, Luna was still or again Byzantine despite Lombard domination. In the year 736, the Lombards actually ruled the old marble city for a short time before it fell again to the East during the Byzantine attempts to recapture it. In 754 the Lombards were again in the city. In 773/774 Charlemagne ended the Lombard supremacy and united their empire with his as King of the Franks and Lombards ( Rex Francorum et Langobardorum ). According to a pious legend, a ship without a crew is said to have docked in the port of Luna in 782, which had a larger than life-size crucifix carved from cedar wood on board. A dispute broke out over this between the two bishops of Lucca and Luna. Ultimately, this cross came to Lucca, where a Volto Santo is still venerated in the Cathedral of San Martino. In 849 marauding Islamic pirates from Catalonia looted the almost helpless bishopric completely. According to Dudo von Saint-Quentin and Stephan von Rotten, the Viking leader Hasting and his men are said to have followed the example of the Saracens in 860 . The Viking had the coastal region also pillaged and with deceit took the city, which was already in ruins in many ways. The reputation of Luna as an exceptionally rich port city has apparently been exaggerated in the seaman's thread of looting ship's crews to the point that Hasting is said to have taken Rome after the conquest of the city, which was medium-sized by ancient standards . In 895, despite its decline, the city is still mentioned as a civitas , which is probably due in particular to its spiritual importance as a bishopric. In the quieter 10th century, the city was now also called "Luno" or "Luni", a smaller, last heyday took place again. St. Mark's Cathedral, which was built in the 8th century, with its crypt and bell tower was also built into the 11th century. But in 1010 the pirate ships of the Islamic warriors reappeared under the command of the Catalan Emir of Dénia in front of Luna and again laid the place to rubble and ashes. It was not until 1016 that an army set up by Pope Benedict VIII was able to defeat the Saracens, who were still angry in the country, near Luna.

As the Magra River silted up, the stone trade was hampered and keeping a fairway clear became more and more expensive. After the final silting of the port and the malaria affliction, most of the population migrated in 1058 to Sarzana , first mentioned in 963, to the northwest , which was more inland, also on the Magra. In the period that followed, almost all of the city's buildings still in existence fell to the medieval stone robbery. The last valuable remains were taken away by antique lovers and art dealers during the Renaissance . Even after leaving the city and relocating the bishopric in 1204, the local leading spiritual dignitary continued to call himself "Bishop of Luna" ( Lunensis episcopus ) in the county of the same name awarded to him. The last inhabitants apparently gave up the place only in the 13th century.

Important findings

The city follows the typical scheme of an ancient settlement that was thought through and planned from the outset, with an approximately 560 × 438 meter, almost rectangular floor plan and right-angled streets. The center was the rectangular forum, to which a sacred area with a temple of Diana was connected to the east. The great Luna temple was on the northern city wall; the excavated theater, not accessible to visitors, was also built on the city wall in its northeast corner. An important building, which is early Christian in its core, is the basilica, which is also not part of the regular tour, and was built near the western city wall. Among the objects found, in addition to portrait heads and togators, a rare Millefiori trophy is particularly noteworthy. The most important mosaic for archaeological research was discovered in the "House of Mosaics" north of the forum. The 3rd / 4th The floor decoration, which was laid in the 19th century and became famous in the 1980s, shows the Circus Maximus in Rome and thus enables a reconstruction of the famous racecourse with imperial box, along with other found objects not from Luna. In 1955 a large altar for the goddess Luna was found.

Forum

Preserved marble floor in the area publica directly at the southern main entrance to the forum. On the far right you can just see the Cardo maximus.

The forum of Luna followed the often repeated Roman building schemes in many areas. On the northern edge of the main square, the eventual Capitol Temple stood in the middle, a podium structure with an outside staircase. It was surrounded by an elongated, rectangular portico with marble paving and pillars that stretched in a southerly direction, and shops and businesses were attached to the outer walls. In the south, the building complex had a complex, impressive entrance. A rectangular basilica was also part of the building . This multi-purpose building was needed for gatherings, court hearings and markets. It was located to the east, at the upper northern end next to the forum and was directly connected to the portico, which it also followed with its long side.

As early as the 4th century, the city began to develop that is difficult to interpret today. The forum and other buildings were partly abandoned and demolished in this century, but especially in the following century. It was believed that the cause was to be found in an earthquake towards the end of the 3rd century. The former city center was later covered with simple wooden houses, which suggests that the old city center has shifted at that time. Some researchers believe that the forum did not end until the 6th century. Another important finding was the construction of a smaller bathing facility to the north behind or partly on top of the forum portico, which has since been abandoned. While the new wooden overbuilding of the old main square was also very primitive at this point in time, this thermal bath in the 5th / 6th Century probably the recreation area of ​​a luxurious, with mosaics of the 3rd / 4th. Century decorated private house on the once public square. The basilica was also no longer there, as it was also covered by a fish market in the northern part of late antiquity.

Temple of Luna

The remains of the Luna Temple

The so-called Great Temple , probably the city's capitol, was planned at its highest point, behind the north-western city wall in the city area, and is considered one of the oldest known shrines of the moon goddess Luna, to whom the city was dedicated. A mighty podium temple with an imposing open staircase and portico , of which significant remains of the substructure can still be seen today, was erected on a previous building that was built in the late Republican period . The first building was built shortly after the colony was founded as a cult site of the Selene- Luna and, with its architectural decorations made of terracotta, was still in the tradition of ancient Tuscan models. A gable frieze that shows Luna sitting on a throne has been preserved from this period. The goddess is flanked by Apollo and Dionysus, each of whom has a muse.

As a successor, the residents of the imperial, Julio-Claudian Luna had a typical Roman monumental building, which they decorated with marble, planned. The substructure of the pseudoperipteros , partly executed in Opus caementitium , had an original height of around 7.5 meters from the level of the walk at that time. Half-columns divided the outer sides of the one-piece, almost square cella on the back and long sides. The outside staircase was bordered by the sides of the wall. The dedicatory inscription, which is still preserved in fragments, goes back to a conversion or renovation in the period between 180 and 222 AD. With the construction of the new temple, the space in front of it was also comprehensively changed. A 60 × 50 meter arcade courtyard was built around the temple on three sides with a marble processional street that led from a large southwest entrance in the portico to the stairs of the cult building. The remains of a Julio-Claudian tank statue from the 1st century AD were discovered in the eastern arcades.

The temple was finally abandoned towards the end of the 4th century. In the early Middle Ages, the former area of ​​the Area sacra was used for residential purposes.

Building inscription

According to Marietta Horster, the building inscription goes back either to Emperor Commodus , but more likely to Caracalla or Elagabal . As usual, it could have been on the architrave and would have been around 13 meters long. Their remains are small:

[... Ant] onin [us] Aug. Pius te [mpl ...]
[...] reius [see below] a pecunia p [osuit].

amphitheater

All-round view in the amphitheater

The amphitheater , used for gladiator fights , animal baiting and executions, was only built around 250 meters in front of the eastern city gate on Via Aurelia Nova in the Antonine period , as there was no longer any space for a large building within the city walls in the 2nd century AD. At that time the decline of the theater culture, which originated from the classical Greek era, began, as was also shown in Luna. The theater built there was located within the walls on the eastern corner of the city. The oval building of the amphitheater of Luna has a width of 88.5 meters in its longitudinal axis and 70.2 meters in width. In total, there was space for around 7,000 spectators in the seating areas, which were divided into two terraces. A portico surrounded the building above the visitor terrace . The gladiators could enter the oval fighting area through two double-gate, opposite entrances, which were located to the southwest and northeast. There seems to have been no underground facilities. Separate entrances around the building were provided for visitors.

After the end of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the facility was used as a quarry.

Burial ground

In Roman antiquity there were burial grounds on the arteries of the towns and cities in front of the walls. These could also be discovered in Luna. In addition to simple burial sites, there were also wealthy burial sites such as tumuli (burial mounds). One of these mounds still had a cippus tube, which led from the crowning ( cippus ) of the tomb into the mound. These "donor tubes", which have been proven several times, were needed during the symbolic feast in honor of the deceased.

literature

  • Bryan Ward-Perkins : Luni. The decline and abandonment of a Roman town. In: Papers in Italian archeology 1, Oxford 1978, pp. 313-321.
  • Augusta Hönle, Anton Henze: Roman amphitheater and stadiums: gladiator fights and circus games . Atlantis-Verlag, Zurich [u. a.] 1981. ISBN 3-7611-0627-0 .
  • Bryan Ward-Perkins: Two Byzantine houses at Luni , In: Papers of the British School at Rome. 49, 1981, pp. 91-98.
  • Bryan Ward-Perkins et al. a .: Luni and the Ager Lunensis: the rise and fall of a Roman town and its territory. In: Papers of the British School at Rome. 54, 1986, pp. 81-146.
  • Anna Maria Durante, Lucia Gervasini: Zona archeologica e Museo Nazionale, Luni. (= Itinerari dei musei, gallery, scavi e monumenti d'Italia. Nuova serie 48) Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, Rome 2000, ISBN 8824036392 .
  • Anna Maria Durante (Ed.): Città antica di Luna: lavori in corso. Luna, La Spezia 2001.
  • Maria Gabriella Angeli Bertinelli: Lunensia Antiqua (= Serta Antiqua et Mediaevalia 13). Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, Rome 2012, ISBN 978-88-7689-257-8 .

Web links

Commons : Luna  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hermann Bengtson : Roman History: Republic and Imperial Era until 284 AD . 4th edition. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1982. ISBN 3-406-02505-6 . P. 108.
  2. Livy 39, 2, 20; 39, 2, 32; 40, 1, 38, 41; Pliny the Elder 3, 11 p. 16; Lib. Colon. P. 235; Henzen. Tab. Alim. P. 57.
  3. Luciana and Tiziano Mannoni: Marmor, Material und Kultur , Callwey, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0505-9 , p. 184.
  4. Lunae portus call the port z. B. Livius ( Ab urbe condita 34.8.4 and 39.21.4) and Ennius (in Satire 6.9 by Persius ). Nino Scivoletto explains in the critical edition of Persius (Firenze 1968, page 147) that he comments on the name Lunae portus with the crescent-shaped port bay (“il golfo… incurvato come una luna”).
  5. Roderich König, Gerhard Winkler, Kai Brodersen (eds.) And a .: Plinius - Naturkunde , Volume 2, Heimeran Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7608-1616-9 , p. 139.
  6. Anita Rieche : Ancient Italy from the air. 2nd Edition. Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1987. ISBN 3-7857-0223-X . P. 140
  7. John Boardman, Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, and others. a .: The Cambridge Ancient History XII - The crisis of the empire, AD 193-337 , 2005, p. 406; Knowledge entry Roman archeology Archaeological Institute of the University of Cologne
  8. Pliny, Historia naturalis 11, 97; Martial 13:30.
  9. Joseph Wilpert : The papal graves and the Cäciliengruft in the catacomb of St. Callistus . Herder, Freiburg 1909, 19 f. 35.
  10. a b c Bernhard evening: Italian Riviera, Liguria . Baedeker, Stuttgart 2007. p. 37.
  11. ^ Werner Goez: Von Pavia nach Rom , Verlag DuMont, Cologne 1980. ISBN 3-7701-0542-7 . P. 82.
  12. ^ Lester K. Little, Barbara H. Rosenwein (eds.): Debating the Middle Ages. Issues and readings , Blackwell Publishing, Oxford 1998. ISBN 1-57718-008-9 , p. 62.
  13. ^ Fedor Schneider : The Reichsverwaltung in Toscana , Minerva-Verlag, Berlin 1966, p. 51.
  14. ^ Paolo Fazzini, Marina Maffei: The disappearance of the city of Luni , In: Journal of Cultural Heritage 1, 2000. pp. 247-260.
  15. ^ A b c Karl Bosl: The history of society in Italy in the Middle Ages , Anton Hiersemann Verlag Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-7772-8206-5 , p. 30.
  16. ^ Werner Goez: Von Pavia nach Rom , Verlag DuMont, Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-7701-0542-7 , p. 97.
  17. a b Mario Cennamo: Pirati saraceni e barbareschi in Liguria , Fratelli Frilli Editori, 2004, p. 21. (in Italian)
  18. Ekkehard Eickhoff: Naval War and Maritime Politics between Islam and the West , De Gruyter, Berlin 1966, p. 199.
  19. ^ Georg Stadtmüller (ed.): Saeculum 24 , Verlag K. Alber, Freiburg and Munich 1973, p. 25.
  20. Jutta Ronke: Magistratische representation in the Roman relief , BAR international series, Oxford, 1987, ISBN 0-86054-478-8 , S. 559th
  21. ^ Frank Kolb : Rome: The history of the city in antiquity , Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-46988-4 , p. 603.
  22. ^ A b Bonner Jahrbücher , Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004. ISBN 978-3-8053-3687-1 . P. 145.
  23. ^ Riccardo Francovich: The hinterland of early medieval towns. In: Joachim Henning (Ed.) Post-Roman towns, trade and settlement in Europe and Byzantium , Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-018356-0 , p. 139.
  24. a b c d Marietta Horster: Building inscriptions of Roman emperors . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-515-07951-3 . P. 323
  25. Epigraphica . No. 64. Università di Bologna, Bologna 2002. p. 134.
  26. Barbara White: Tumulat Italia tellus. Design, chronology and significance of the Roman round graves in Italy , VML Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden 2002. p. 47.

See also

Coordinates: 44 ° 3 ′ 50 ″  N , 10 ° 1 ′ 1 ″  E

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