Villa di Faonte

This is the archaeological area between Via delle Vigne Nuove and Via Passo del Turchino, characterised by the presence of structures pertaining to a private villa located at about the sixth kilometre of the Via Nomentana between the latter and the Via Salaria.
The villa was described by Nibby in 1849 and then by Tomasetti and Lanciani, who reported the presence of walls in opus reticolatum extending over the hill for a surface area of approximately 300 square metres and the presence of a cryptoporticus, later recognised to be a cistern, leaning against the south side of the hill.

In the 1960s, underground rooms made up of tunnels and wells were discovered, which were recognised as a system of cisterns with tunnels dating to the Republican age, a phase prior to the construction of the external cistern.

The identification of this villa with the suburbanum Phaontis dates back as early as Nibby, but there is a lack of certain evidence, its attribution being based exclusively on its location, which Suetonius reports as being in the Fidelitian countryside at mile marker IV between the Salaria and Nomentana, and on the discovery, in 1891 in land near the villa, of the funerary epigraph of a certain Claudia Egloge, the name of Nero's nurse. However, the presence of numerous rustic villas in the area as well as the frequency of the proper name in question do not allow a certain attribution.