Antium

Antium was an ancient coastal town in Latium, south of Rome. An oppidum was founded by people of Latial culture (11th century BC or the beginning of the 1st millennium BC), then it was the main stronghold of the Volsci people until it was conquered by the Romans. In some versions of Rome's foundation myth, Antium was founded by Anteias, son of Odysseus. The territory of Roman Antium almost entirely corresponded to modern Anzio and Nettuno. The Latin-volscian town stood in the Capo d'Anzio (modern Anzio), on a higher ground and somewhat away from the shore, though it extended down to it. This was defended by a deep ditch, which can still be traced, and by walls, a portion of which, on the eastern side, constructed of rectangular blocks of tufa, was brought to light in 1897. The Latin colony of 467 BC, of which it will be said later, would be installed alongside the Latin-volscian oppidum. A coeval port town, Caenon, was the port under the control of Antium (which did not have a natural harbour of its own): according to alternative theories, the port of Caenon would be located in the Capo d'Anzio, or the port town very north of it, or the town on a hill near Nettuno to the east, and the port over the mouth of the nearby river Loricina. The settlement of Roman Antium was certainly present in the area of the Capo d'Anzio (in particular, a presumed extensive town since the mid-republican age, the imperial colony and the great harbour of Nero), but a parallel agricultural settlement, with the same name, was likely to be in the same position as modern Nettuno since the colony of 338 BC; so from 60 AD the colonia Antium of Nero in the Capo d'Anzio would coexisted with a supposed, more ancient, civitas Antium in Nettuno, which in the 4th century AD would have been the only real town: a thesis that has found some perplexities or an opposition. In 493 BC - the same year that, according to a theory, the Volsci likely settled in the town - the Roman consul Postumus Cominius Auruncus fought and defeated two armies from Antium and as a result captured the Volscian towns of Longula, Pollusca and Corioli (to the north of Antium).