Aquileia

What is there today

What you see of Roman Aquileia are the areas that have been excavated and left open: a forum with re-erected columns, the quays of a river port, quarters of houses reduced to their walls and floors, and large mosaic floors, several of them under modern covers. The open areas all lie within about 600 m of the Basilica square (OpenStreetMap).

The forum

The operator places the forum’s first phase in the 2nd century BC and dates the square you see, paved in Aurisina limestone with porticoes on at least three sides, to the first half of the 1st century AD. A row of columns from the eastern portico was put back up in the 1930s and patched with brick, and their capitals are dated to about 170–180 AD. Published figures for the square range from 115 to 141 m long and 55 to 57 m wide (it.wikipedia, the operator). To the south ran a civil basilica, only partly recognisable today, and a paved street, the decumanus of Aratria Galla, named after the woman who paid for its paving (the operator). Archaeologists were still at work in the forum in 2025.

The river port and the Via Sacra

A cypress-lined path, the Via Sacra, laid out in the 1930s with the spoil from the excavation, runs from the Basilica past the remains of the river port (the operator). The quays, loading ramps and mooring blocks run for more than 300 m along what was a river bed almost 50 m wide, and behind them stand the walls of an equally long, narrow building, probably a warehouse. The operator dates a complete rebuilding over an older harbour to the start of the 1st century AD; the Wikipedia articles date the first port to the late 2nd century BC and its rebuilding in stone to the later 1st century AD. In the 4th century a town wall almost 3 m thick was built over the quays. The operator calls it one of the best-preserved port structures of the Roman world.

The Domus of Titus Macer

If you see only one house, make it this one. The excavated house covers about 1,700 m², some 77 m by 25 m between two paved streets, and a modern roof built over its full plan shows the house at its real size, room by room: an atrium with four columns and a water basin, a reception room with a mosaic floor, a garden, a dining room and, in the eastern part, four shops, one of them a bakery whose oven remains are still on view (the operator). The name rests on a stone weight inscribed T.MACR found in the excavation. The University of Padua excavated it between 2009 and 2015 (the operator). Published dates for it differ: the operator says it was built in the 1st century BC and lived in until the 6th century AD, while Pleiades dates it to the mid-1st century AD, when at least two older houses were merged into one.

The Domus e Palazzo Episcopale

On the north side of the Basilica square, a route under a modern cover takes you down to 4 m below today’s ground through three periods stacked on top of each other (the operator): first the mosaic floors of the 5th-century bishop’s palace, then, at the deepest level, part of a 1st-century house with frescoed walls still standing more than a metre high, and last a 4th-century apsed hall of about 100 m² whose mosaic floor is full of fish, octopus, shells, birds, grapes and baskets of fruit. The operator gives the apsed hall the same craftsmen and date as the mosaics of the Basilica’s first halls.

The Basilica’s 4th-century mosaics

The Basilica itself is a later church, but it stands on the halls that Bishop Theodore founded in 313 with the support of Constantine, probably the first public complex built for Christian worship. Their remains can be seen in the nave of the present building and under the bell tower (it.wikipedia). The ticket takes in the Basilica’s 4th-century mosaics and the Cripta degli Scavi, the mosaic-floored north Theodorian hall, together with the baptistery and the Südhalle (the operator).

The Fondo CAL houses and the Eastern Domus

West of the main road, the open-air Fondo CAL area holds houses rebuilt and merged over four centuries, from the 1st to the 4th–5th (the operator). In the Eastern Domus a large apsed hall, under a modern roof, has a 4th-century mosaic of the Good Shepherd among fish, dolphins, peacocks and ducks. It was long taken for an early Christian oratory and is now read as the reception room of a rich man’s house. A western house, laid out around a peristyle, has black-and-white geometric mosaics that date its main phase to the age of Augustus (the operator).

Other open areas

In the southern part of the town, the Fondo Pasqualis shows three 5th-century market squares, with gaming boards scratched into the kerbs of one, and two lines of a late Roman town wall (the operator). The Sepolcreto, a small necropolis, is another free open-air area (the operator).

What you cannot visit

• The amphitheatre was excavated in trenches by the University of Verona in 2015 and 2016, which found that it stood entirely on self-supporting walls, like the Arena of Verona (univrmagazine). It is not among the areas the operator lists as open, and its mapped position is only approximate.
• The Grandi Terme, a vast late-antique public bath building, has been excavated by the University of Udine in campaigns since 2002 (DIUM, Università di Udine). It is not on the operator’s regular opening list, though it was opened to visitors on the European Archaeology Days in June 2026 (Ministero della Cultura).
• The House of the Wounded Animals (Domus delle bestie ferite), an elite townhouse with elaborate mosaic floors from the age of Augustus and from late antiquity (Pleiades), lies about 1 km north-west of the Basilica and is not on the operator’s list.
• The circus, built from 293, lies near today’s cemetery, and nothing of it is visible beyond a stretch of late-antique wall (PromoTurismoFVG).

The National Archaeological Museum, entered from Via Roma, holds the finds from the city (en.wikipedia), among them the mosaics taken from the Domus of Titus Macer’s block, such as the Rape of Europa and the “unswept floor” (the operator).