The territory of roman Parma

Description

The Roman colony of Parma was founded in 183 BC with the function of controlling the Apennine valleys populated by the Ligurians still at war with Rome: each of the 2000 colonists, who arrived with their families from central Italy, was assigned 8 iugera of land (about 20,200 m2). The centurial operations divided the territory into square lots of about 710 m on each side, delimited by roads, rows of trees and canals. The agricultural settlements, usually two per centuria, were initially distributed in the areas closest to the city and then spread up to 900 m above sea level and in the lower plain up to the Po. From the city, the roads leading north to Brixellum, a port on the Po river, south to the Apennine valleys of Taro and Ceno, Parma, Baganza and Enza, while to the west of the stream began the roads to Cremona and Luni.
The necropolises were set up along the main roads; the inscriptions reveal the presence of funerary enclosures containing multiple tombs, single burials marked by epigraphs, monumental tombs, such as the one to which the two large stone lions found along the Via Emilia and now at the entrance to the Museum belonged. At the northern edge of the city and the road to the Po, a large necropolis discovered in the nineteenth century has yielded tombs from the Republican era, including an infant burial in a tree trunk, and traces of use at least until the third century AD. To the south, in a necropolis excavated in recent years on the ancient road to the Val d’Enza, rich grave goods from the first and second centuries AD have emerged, relating to both cremation and inhumation tombs. Recurring objects are lamps, balms and coins, inserted into the mouth or hand of the deceased as “Charon’s obols”; banquet furnishings are often added, such as ceramic and glass cups and glasses, ornaments and personal objects, such as game pieces or shells, symbols of both the risk inherent in human destiny and of regeneration.
The basis of the economy is agriculture, practiced in small and medium-sized settlements spread from at least the 1st century BC. The cultivation of cereals is accompanied by other productions, destined for the city and local markets; brick or amphora furnaces are documented in various locations. The intense commercial activities, with the importation of Istrian oil and wine and fish sauce (the famous garum) from Spain, are demonstrated by the thousands of amphorae reused in the reclamation of damp land, under the streets and houses of the city.
The black-glazed and red-glazed pottery, the pantry and kitchen ceramics, scales, writing instruments, bronzes for domestic worship and personal ornamentation are typical examples of the materials in use within the richest Roman homes (the domus) from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD