The Colosseum Archaeological Park is opening to the public for the first time the Horrea Piperataria, the warehouses of “Egyptian and Arabian spices” currently located under the Basilica of Maxentius, mentioned by the Latin writers Plinius and Cassius Dione and built by the emperor Domitian on the south-west slopes of the Velia, the hill between the Esquiline and the Palatine, and built at the behest of the emperor Domitian on the south-west slopes of the Velia hill, which no longer exists today.
The building was organized around open porticoed courtyards, equipped with functional pools with drainage wells, and articulated on several floors as shown by the traces of various stairwells; in fact, the complex developed on terraces to follow the natural slope of the hill. At the time, spices were used in the pharmacological field: the entire area around which the Horrea Piperataria arose took on, and maintained for centuries, a “medical-health” vocation, undoubtedly favored by the presence of these warehouses. Shortly before the Second Punic War, Arcagato, originally from the Peloponnese, called to Rome at state expense and the city’s first public doctor, had a domus and a medical taberna in this area. The famous Galen of Pergamon, who lived in the 2nd century and was also a doctor, had his apotheca, or warehouse of precious goods, in this area of the city, precisely because the neighborhood provided ample guarantees of security, guarded by military garrisons.
The new installation, which presents the results of scientific investigations recently conducted by PArCo in collaboration with Sapienza University of Rome, proposes a stratigraphic path of rediscovery of the horrea, using as a trait d’union a suspended glass walkway, superimposed on the archaeological excavation. On this occasion the results of the recent investigations have illustrated a multimedia story that returns the various construction phases of the buildings in the area from before Nero to the construction of the Basilica of Maxentius above and beyond.
The warehouses will be open to visitors for the first time thanks to a new entrance located on the ancient vicolo delle Carinae, which has also been completely renovated and is also accessible to people with disabilities, equipped with new signage and accessible from the Roman Forum to the view of the Temple of Peace.
Photo credits: by Simona Murrone, view of the excavation and the new visiting route of the Horrea Piperataria, Colosseum Archaeological Park
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