Teate - Resti della città romana

The Roman town named Teate was founded on a hill between the rivers Pescara and Alento, in a place inhabited since the prehistory. The area developed considerably in the first century B.C., when it became a Roman municipium with the name of Teate Marrucinorum. The most significant remains, situated in the public area of the town, are the citadel, the theater, the public baths and the Roman temples. In the site of the citadel, the archaeologists discovered earthenware, statues and temple decorations dated from the republican age (I century B.C.) and an amphitheater of the first century A.D. At the foot of the hill where the citadel rises it is easy to recognize the ruins of the first-century Roman amphitheater, enclosed in the town and to identify its perimetric wall and a few remains of a semicircular two-storey hallway. The baths (II century B.C) were located underneath the east side of the hill: it was a big area, decorated with mosaics and divided in several rooms, supplied with water from an underground cistern in front of the baths. The ancient forum exhibits the remains of three Roman temples, built during the imperial age; in the site the archaeologists discovered mosaic surfaces and buildings related to a former worship and erected using the old technique known as opus quadratum.