Gabii and the Archaeology of Roman Urbanism: Recent Discoveries and New Directions

Ongoing large-scale excavations at ancient Gabii, a long-lived primary center of Latium Vetus, are providing a critical mass of data to elucidate the processes that brought about urban forms in the core region of Rome’s early hegemony. A new cycle of fieldwork has been launched to investigate the development of one of the town’s epicenters, which represented the nexus for both wheeled and pedestrian traffic and of public activity and engagement more broadly. Recent discoveries allow us to analyze the relationship between the establishment of the street system, the emergence of civic and commercial spaces, and the development of domestic architecture in greater resolution than normally possible. The progressive infilling of the spaces can be contextualized on account of the unusual circumstances of Gabii’s resettlement, its apparently only gradual repopulation, and its lack of legal status through the Mid-Republican period. Although difficult to interpret because of the general lack of comparanda, the results provide much needed evidence to fill the existing gaps in our knowledge of the formation of distinctive Roman building types. Ultimately, Gabii’s long-term archaeological sequence highlights the shifting values and priorities materialized in the creation and subsequent transformations of different urban components from the perspective of both individual agents and groups implicated in the physical growth on neighboring Rome.