Urban layout Within the city walls, the urban area was divided into an
orthogonal plan, with space allotted for civic, sacred, and private architecture. The plan represents a subtle adaptation of an orthogonal plan to the complicated topography of the hill. The forum was found on a saddle between two heights, with the sacred area, the Capitolium, linked to it by a broad street. Recent excavations have suggested that the original layout provided for about 248 houses, of which 20 were intended for the
decurions, and were double the size of the houses of the ordinary citizens. The larger houses were found on the forum and the main processional streets.. There are three gates which correspond to as many roads: the northwest, or Florentine gate, which corresponds to the modern entrance to the site, the northeast, or Roman gate, and the southeast, or maritime gate. Each has the same structure, twin gates, one in line with the walls and one to the inside, with a space between them. The
arx also had an
independent circuit wall. At the western corner of this was a postern, closed in the early Byzantine period, when the hill was refortified with a wall built with an emplecton. A final, medieval circuit in mortared
rubble masonry runs along the same line. In recent years, the Archaeological Soprintendenza of Tuscany has conducted extensive documentation, repairs, and reconstructions of the walls.
Temples on the Arx The vast majority of religious monuments at Cosa were located at the
Arx, "an area sacra, abode of those gods, quorum maxime in tutela civitas." The Arx was positioned at the highest and southernmost point of the colony. Its limits were defined by the Town Wall on the S and W sides, by cliffs on the NW side, and by the Arx Wall on the NE side. In total, the Arx constituted around one-twentieth of the whole area of the townsite. Aside from the colony's walls, the Arx provides us with the site's most impressive remains, the first American excavation taking place from 1948-1950. Though mainly a religious center, there is some evidence of Republican housing. The Arx reached its fullest development in the early 2nd century BC, consisting of at least three temples and the Capitolium. Scholars have only been able to identify this building through traces of walls and fragments of its terracotta decoration.
Temple D Dating to the late 3rd century BC, Temple D was located opposite the north angle of the Capitolium's forecourt and was oriented SE. It supported a single square cella.
History The Forum of Cosa occupied one-tenth of the townsite. The first signs of activity in the Forum were of digging and opening of cisterns and pits. The four cisterns situated in the Forum held approximately 988,000 liters of water, which added to the Reservoir at the western corner of the Forum of 750,000 liters. The Reservoir was used as a public reserve and dated from before the arrival of the colony. The new cisterns were created as a response to the demand of the Forum, which was used as both a daily marketplace and a common gathering ground. A large enclosure, for the purpose of assembly, was constructed at a date before the
First Punic War. It had an amphitheatric arrangement that had steps which were too small for seating and a floor too small for a gladiatorial arena. This was the Comitium of Cosa. There was a break in the creation of public works due to two decades of war and again another interruption in 225 BC by Gallic raids. The remains of a quadrilateral platform floored with
tegulae, a form of
tiling, were discovered southeast of the Comitium. It is suggested that this building had served as a rain catchment and the water collected here would have been impounded into a cistern. After the war had ended in 201 BC, new colonists arrived and set off a flood of activity. Eight very similar and unitary buildings were built around the Forum in the 170s, but were destroyed in the sack of Cosa a century later. These eight were known by Brown as the 'Atrium Buildings', although they have now been shown to have been houses. Once the square had been reconstructed, the Curia was rebuilt into its second form. However, this form only lasted for fifteen to twenty years before new spaces were required. Curia II was demolished in order to build Curia III, but little remains of the original structure. The next building created for the Forum was Temple B, which is dated from 175-150 BC. About thirty to forty years later, the temple was seriously damaged by the collapse of a wall, which led to its reconstruction. The new Temple B was designed to preserve the older sacred structure while rebuilding the sanctuary in a new form. After the rebuilding of Curia III and Temple B, the Basilica was laid out. The city was sacked in 70 BC, and much of the colony was restored unevenly. Atrium Buildings Seven and Eight were not rebuilt, while buildings one through five were. Although the Basilica had survived the sack, it had been rotting, and eventually, a central wall collapsed outward. In the 50s AD, the site was hit by a substantial earthquake, and Atrium Building V, the 'House of Diana' was occupied by the man in charge of rebuilding, L. Titinius Glaucus. At this point, the basilica was reconstructed as an odeum. However, the house and the other buildings around the forum were abandoned soon afterwards. A revival of activity occurred under Caracalla, when two substantial horrea were built, and the portico around the forum was rebuilt, with a sanctuary to Liber Pater on the northeast side. Occupation ceased by the middle of the century, except for occasional visits to the sanctuary.
Curia and Comitium There are many important aspects to Cosa, especially the Forum; however, two of the most important structures are the
Curia and
Comitium. The Comitium at Cosa is a fairly new discovery and shows many similarities to Rome. The Curia lies on the northern end of the Comitium. The oldest part of the Curia dates back to the start of Cosa around 273 BC. The Curia, originally thought to be a temple, was found on the Northeast corner between a basilica and Temple B. The building was identified when the area in front was excavated and found to be "a circle of dark earth enclosed by a sandy yellow fill". The Curia was originally thought to be a temple, this is because the concept for the shape of the Comitium and the Curia mirrors the look of a stairway up to a temple. This idea can be seen from archaeological evidence such as the
Theater of Pompey with the Temple Venus Victrix. Permanent theaters were not the norm and were considered a place of gathering of the people against the senate around 55 BC when Pompey built his theater. However, to make sure he could build it, he replicated the concept of the Comitium and the Curia by placing a temple to Venus at the top of the theater with steps that doubled as seating. The original Curia built shows many connections to the
Curia Hostilia at Rome. It is thought to have been a wooden structure with a stone base that was later made more permanent. The Comitium steps, which lead up to the Curia, appear to have been stone from the beginning. There are several layers of Curia, with the original starting as a small two-story building. This consisted of the curia proper and possibly a records office. The biggest change is seen around 173 BC in what is considered the coming of the second wave of colonists, which called for a larger Curia. The Curia was then expanded into a larger building with three halls. Scholars speculate that these three halls are at the northern end of a
tabularium, with offices for
aediles and other magistrates on the south side, and the Curia in the middle. This occurrence of being tripartite is seen as a common aspect of Roman culture as well as in other areas of archaeology, such as the latter with the
Curia Julia and around the 4th/3rd century BC with the south halls of the Forum at Pompeii.
Private houses The site has played an important role in the interpretation of Roman colonization during the Middle Republican period. The housing has been the subject of two extensive publications.
The House of Diana On the forum, the House of Diana on the south side of the forum was excavated and restored between 1995 and 1999. It was published in full by E. Fentress (2004), and a detailed report on the stratigraphy is available on the web (http://www.press.umich.edu/webhome/cosa/home.html ). This is a large house, 16m wide, on a standard atrium plan, very similar to that of the
House of Sallust in Pompeii. Built around 170 BCE, it reveals the standard plan of a Roman atrium house. In front, opening onto the forum, are two tabernae, with rear rooms and cesspits, probably intended for the sale of wine, in one case, and food, in the other. Between them, the atrium was entered through a fauces. It was compluviate, with a central impluvium. On the right and left were two cubicula, followed by two alae, or side rooms. At the back were found the kitchen, the tablinum, or reception room and the
triclinium, or dining room. Beyond them lay a garden, probably used for raising vegetables, as a large compost heap suggests. The house was destroyed around 70 BCE and was entirely rebuilt in the Augustan period, from which we have a fine series of frescoes and mosaics. At this point, the triclinium was opened towards the rear, connected to the garden, now ornamental, through a colonnaded loggia. This would have been the summer dining room: for the winter, the two eastern cubicula were joined to make a single room. In the 50s, it seems to have become the house of
Lucius Titinius Glaucus Lucretianus, who seems to have been responsible for the repair of the damage caused by an earthquake. In the garden of the house, he added a small sanctuary in the form of a temple to the goddess Diana. Here were found a dedication to the goddess and various fragments of marble furniture and statuary, including a fourth-century BC head of a woman in Greek marble. The house was abandoned no later than the end of the first century CE, and in the third century, the space it occupied was used for the construction of a granary.
Houses of Square V-D The excavations published by
R. T. Scott (1993) dealt with a series of small houses in the western part of the site. These occupy street frontages of around 8 meters, with open courtyard spaces and gardens in the rear. The smaller houses strongly resembled the Pompeii-style houses of the time, measuring about 8 meters wide, containing a
tablinum-type room and a minimum of one
cubiculum, and were grouped around a courtyard. These smaller houses are typical of Roman housing of the Republican period, bearing a close resemblance to similar structures at Pompeii. The private houses surrounding the forum contrast the findings of Scott and what was previously thought about the houses at Cosa because they were much bigger and match the archetypal layout we see at sites like Pompeii. The houses elsewhere in the colony that have been excavated are only half as wide as the large houses surrounding the forum. There are a few possibilities as to what the larger houses meant in the grand scheme of the colony. Archaeologist Vincent Bruno suggests that the unusual layout of the house of the skeleton, a larger, 'atrium' house, suggests that this "quality of the unexpected may perhaps be regarded as a symptom of the period in which Roman builders were still experimenting with structural ideas later employed in more rigidly symmetrical compositions".
Elizabeth Fentress suggests that the differentiation in house size between the smaller plots in this block and those clustered around the forum is due to a colonist class distinction. The houses near the forum and along the processional streets are almost certainly...houses for two classes of colonists, some of whom received plots twice as large as the others. The smaller houses are those of the ordinary colonists, with clear parallels at Pompeii and elsewhere. Regardless of the reasoning behind the different sizes and layouts of the private spaces, the houses at Cosa are extremely telling of the history of Cosa after 200 BC. Scott's excavations of the West Block show "not only the effects of the sack and subsequent abandonment of the town in the first century BC but also those of more recent and seasonal occupation by small farmers and herdsmen between the beginning of the 18th and 19th century."
Ancient port Significance McCann points out that "the layer of mud deposited around and on top of the dock as well as the presence of many joining sherds suggests the possibility of destruction by a sudden disaster, such as a tsunami which swept into the inner lagoon." The Cosa harbor was never a major port of transit; however, in ancient times it provided the best anchorage between Gaeta in the south and La Spezia to the north. This was probably a primary reason for the colony's position within newly acquired Etruscan territory. Eventually, the harbor established its own community, including a temple dedicated either to Portunus or Neptune, which resembled the Temple on the Arx and probably also dates to 170-160. In addition, remains of fish tanks have been found, which suggest the importance of aquiculture and the production of
garum. The port's main period of prosperity occurred from the late 2nd century BC through the later 1st century BC, and there was a revival by the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD due to the growth of the villa economy in the countryside of Cosa. Although the city of Cosa and the port must have interacted in important ways, material evidence indicates that they do not follow a parallel development.
Archaeological methods and evidence The port at Cosa was first surveyed by Professor Frank E. Brown of the American Academy in Rome in 1951. According to Anna Marguerite McCann, one of the later excavators, "in antiquity Cosa was a landlocked port, communicating with the sea by means of an artificial ship-channel, protected at the seaward end by a massive breakwater and provided with a set of elaborate channels cut into the limestone cliff, designed to keep the mouth free of sand." Another lead excavator, Colonel John D. Lewis, invented two new technical devices: a water jet prober to help identify structures buried in the sand, and a construction of sheet steel formed by joining cylinders which could be used to obtain harbor stratification. This allowed finds to be recovered in a stratified context for the first time in underwater archaeology, and established ancient harbor levels for Cosa between one meter and one meter eighty below the current sea floor. Many fragments of transport amphorae have been found on the beach and offshore areas of the harbor, the earliest of which date to the late 3rd century. This provides support for the belief that there was a lucrative wine trade based in the Cosa area, especially because many of the amphorae were stamped with the sign of the
Sestius family, major exporters of wine whose trade network extended into Gaul. The earliest Sestius amphorae found at Cosa date to 175-150 and continue into the 1st century. The abundance of Sestius
amphorae fragments suggests that the port of Cosa was likely the center of manufacturing and distribution of these famous jars, which firmly places Cosa as a key trading center during the late Republic.
Outer harbour There are visible remains of five large masonry piers in the outer harbor, which are built from mortared rubblework of tufa and sherds. The sherds are mostly from amphorae of Dressel Type I, suggesting a construction date during the 2nd or 1st centuries BC. The concrete masonry piers provide the earliest evidence for the use of
tufo and
pozzolana concrete in water, probably dating to the late 2nd or early 1st century BC. Tufo and pozzolana are resistant to deterioration in basic solutions such as salt water, and therefore this type of concrete was used throughout the entire complex in structures that were in constant contact with water. There is also a continuous foundation of stone (only visible underwater) for a breakwater which offered protection on the southern exposure, as well as a series of discontinuous extensions of the breakwater protecting the harbor from the south and southwest winds; "their spacing suggests that they were constructed with the primary purpose of breaking the crushing force of the seas without affecting the flow of currents in and out of the enclosed harbor area."
Fishery Excavations have uncovered the earliest known commercial fishery about 250 m behind the port, complete with two long fish tanks and a freshwater spring enclosed in a Spring House (on the western embankment). According to McCann, "connecting channels allowed for a continuing circulation of water and fish as well as salinity and temperature control." The evidence points to a large-scale fishing industry at Cosa, and it is believed that there may have been a factory close by for salting fish and producing the fish sauce garum (trade in garum is thought to have been much more lucrative than most wines). ==Middle Ages==