Interamnia Praetuttiorum – Teramo

Is it worth the trip?

As a short walk on a visit to Teramo, or a stop between Rome and the Adriatic coast, yes: two large Roman entertainment buildings next to each other in the middle of a living town are an unusual sight, and the cathedral’s reused stones tie them to what came after. As a destination in its own right, not yet. The theatre, which it.wikipedia counts among the best-preserved Roman theatres of the region, is a building site until its restoration is finished, the amphitheatre is a wall rather than an arena, and the Domus del Leone has no published opening hours. Come back when the theatre opens.

Getting there

Teramo lies 150 km from Rome on the A24 motorway, which a link road, the SS 80 racc, extends to the A14 on the Adriatic coast; a railway line links Teramo station with Giulianova on the coast (en.wikipedia, it.wikipedia). The point that stands for the Roman town is at Piazza Garibaldi, through which all eight town bus lines pass (it.wikipedia); the theatre and amphitheatre are about 600 m to the south-east, on via Teatro Antico beside the cathedral. Drivers will find a paid car park about 60 m from the theatre (OpenStreetMap).

The amphitheatre wall can be seen from the street. The theatre site, the Domus del Leone and the Museo archeologico Francesco Savini are another matter: no current hours or prices for them could be confirmed from the operators, and the civic museums’ former web address now belongs to an unrelated site, so ask at the town’s tourist office (IAT), mapped about 250 m from Piazza Garibaldi (OpenStreetMap), before planning around them. About 2.4 km from the centre, in the Cona district, the archaeological park of the Ponte Messato necropolis shows a Roman road and tombs (it.wikipedia).

History

The town began as the chief centre of the Praetutii, an Italic people. In 290 BC their territory was occupied by the legions of the consul Manius Curius Dentatus (en.wikipedia, it.wikipedia). In 268 BC a meeting place of Roman citizens, a conciliabulum, was set up, the Praetutii received full Roman citizenship, and the town went on to become a municipium and, after the Social War of 91–88 BC, a colony (Pleiades, en.wikipedia). Its Latin name, Interamnia, means “between the rivers”: it stands where the Tordino and the Vezzola meet (Pleiades, en.wikipedia). Under Augustus it was placed in Regio V, Picenum (en.wikipedia).

The theatre is generally dated to the reign of Augustus, with the decoration of its stage building placed around 30 BC, though one account puts it in the 2nd century AD. The amphitheatre’s date is uncertain: published dates run from the 1st to the 4th century AD (it.wikipedia, en.wikipedia).

In the Middle Ages the town was known as Aprutium, from the name of the Praetutii, and the name passed to the whole of Abruzzo (en.wikipedia, it.wikipedia). Both buildings were quarried for stone, above all for the cathedral built from the 12th century over the north-western part of the amphitheatre (it.wikipedia). In 1583 Bishop Giulio Ricci had earth cleared from the amphitheatre’s wall and its remains described. Because houses stood on both, the two buildings were long confused with each other; the local historian and archaeologist Francesco Savini recognised in the 20th century that a theatre lay under the houses near the cathedral, and the first demolitions to free it began in 1934 (it.wikipedia).