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24-625: It was probably built to serve the town of Formiae which had been elevated to a municipium , and which the road linked to the towns of Terracina and Gaeta . It was a side branch of the via Appia , the much more famous Roman consular road, which it rejoined after Formiae near the Rialto bridge, and provided an alternative route to avoid the Aurunci mountains . The areas along the coast of Formiae and Caietae were popular resorts and sites of seaside villas of many important rich patricians of Rome, notably

48-535: A fortress in the maritime burgh, Mola di Gaeta. The other burgh was known as Castellone, from the castle erected there in the mid-14th century by Onorato I Caetani , count of Fondi . The two villages were united again in 1863 under the name of Formia. The reunited city was badly damaged in 1943–44 in bombing operations and the Battle of Anzio . Formia lies on the Tyrrhenian Sea , in southern Lazio, close to

72-476: A staircase supported by three arches in the north-west corner and one in the south-east, currently closed. The only one of the two staircases (CC) that still allows access to the main nave is the north-western staircase. Given the absence of holes visible from the outside, it is presumed that water was introduced through pipes coming from the North-West entrance (D). In the middle of the short central nave there

96-466: Is a 1.1 m deep basin (BB), hollowed out in the floor and provided with an outlet at one end, which served as a so-called piscina limaria (waste-bath, i.e. a settling and drainage basin ) for the decantation, cleaning and periodic emptying of the cistern. Water was extracted from above through ancient hydraulic systems , exploiting the holes in the barrel vaults. The walls and pillars of the pool are faced in opus reticulatum , with recourse to bricks for

120-411: Is the completion of the excavations between 1910 and 1926, followed by the consolidation of the damaged walls. In 1926 restoration of the second and third supporting arch was carried out and the surfaces of the pillars were restored with new opus reticulatum . In 1929 the access staircase was covered with a layer of cocciopesto . In 1936 the missing parts of the vaults were reconstructed and the extrados

144-649: Is twinned with: Piscina Mirabilis The Piscina Mirabilis ( Latin for "wondrous pool") is an Ancient Roman cistern on the Bacoli hill at the western end of the Gulf of Naples , southern Italy . It ranks as one of the largest ancient cisterns built by the ancient Romans, compared to the largest Roman reservoir, the Yerebatan Sarayi ( aka Basilica Cistern) in Istanbul . The adjective Mirabilis

168-541: The Aqua Augusta , it is also possible that the cistern belonged instead to one of the many luxurious villas built in this area, like the smaller Grotta della Dragonara and Cento Camerelle cisterns nearby. The Piscina Mirabilis was supplied with water from the Aqua Augusta, built after 33 BC, which brought water to most of the sites around Naples . A row of twelve small chambers with barrel vaults were added on

192-679: The Antro di Punta Cetarola, then further north leads to the Torre Capovento. Formiae Formia (ancient Formiae ) is a city and comune in the province of Latina , on the Mediterranean coast of Lazio  [ it ] , Italy . It is located halfway between Rome and Naples , and lies on the Roman-era Appian Way . According to the mythology the city was founded by Lamus , son of Poseidon , who

216-429: The Aqua Augusta was destroyed between the 4th and 5th century AD. Testament to its monumentality are the dimensions: 15 metres (49 ft) high, 72 metres (236 ft) long, and 25 metres (82 ft) wide. The capacity is 12,600 cubic metres (440,000 cu ft), amounting, in other words, to 12.6 million litres (3.33 million US gallons ) of water, or roughly the size of 5 Olympic-size swimming pools . It

240-496: The Old Highway. Formia also has great water sports to enjoy; windsurfing and sailing. Formia itself is one of the most important transport hubs of southern Lazio. The Rome–Formia–Naples railway passes through Formia-Gaeta railway station , from which visitors and residents may travel by bus to Gaeta , Minturno, Spigno and other local towns. Ferries and hydrofoils connect Formia to Ponza , Ischia and Ventotene . Formia

264-593: The city of Caieta was also part of the Formian territory. It became a renowned resort during the Republican era for rich Romans to build elaborate villas and Horace called it "the city of the Mamurrae" as the rich and noble equestrian family of Mamurra had strong interests there, including the villa-estate nearby at Gianola, which can still be seen. The impressive remains of Roman villas still stretch along

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288-591: The coast from the fishponds in the Nuovo Porto to Gaeta. Cicero had a villa there. He was assassinated on the Appian Way just outside the town in 43 BC and his monumental tomb can also still be seen. The villa attributed to Cicero, now in the Villa Rubino, includes an elaborate nymphaeum and rooms decorated with frescoes and stucco. The hotel Villa Irlanda contains a cryptoporticus with stucco of

312-542: The grandiose villa of the emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga . The road was a difficult and dangerous project as the coastline is mountainous in many places. Livy says: "Flaccus separately built a dam at the Neptunian spring that the people might have a footpath there, and a road over the hill at Formiae..." At the cliffs at Formia, it passes at an altitude of 30–40 m, and is supported by terraces in double polygonal walls with opus caementicium (concrete) to anchor them to

336-557: The monumental villa of Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul 56 BC) , stepfather of Augustus . Villa Caracciolo has a large court surrounded by rooms. Many marble sculptures have been removed from these villas, the majority of which are in the Museo Nazionale in Naples, notably a fine pair of Nereids riding on sea monsters. Remains of an amphitheatre and theatre can be seen. The enormous underground cistern dug 15 metres below ground

360-399: The north-eastern side in the late 1st to early 2nd century to increase the usable capacity and constructed in opus mixtum and opus vittatum . In one of them is an opus signinum floor with labyrinth-shaped mosaic tesserae and a central white inlaid panel with limestone polychrome tiles, which seems to date to a more ancient phase. The cistern was definitively out of use when

384-787: The old Appian Way, enclosed in a large 83-by-68-metre (272 by 223 ft) funerary precinct. Other sights include: Formia is the seat of the National Athletics School of the Italian National Olympic Committee , founded in 1955. Athletes such as Pietro Mennea and Giuseppe Gibilisco trained here. Formia is also a hub for cycling events of various types; road cycling and mountain biking All of which gives access to Parks in Gaeta and Formia; Parco Monte Orlando, Parco Regionale Riviera di Ulisse, Parco Naturale dei Monti Aurunci, and Tours to Rome via

408-496: The patron saint of sailors. Paulinus of Nola and Therasia stopped at Formiae on their journey back to Nola after visiting Rome at Easter 408. There they read Augustine 's letter 95 addressed to them. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire the city was sacked by "barbarians" and the population moved to two distinct burghs on the nearby hill, which were under the rule of Gaeta . Charles II of Anjou built

432-462: The rock. In the section below Sperlonga wheel ruts in the surface of steep sections of a wheelbase of 0.8 m can be seen. The modern road has been built upon the Roman road on most of its route, but from Sant'Agostino beach towards Sperlonga is a track of the old road. At Punta Cetarola, south of Sperlonga, the track is supported by a wall of square and polygonal stone and passes through a natural cave,

456-476: The town of Gaeta and next to the borders of Campania region. The municipality borders with Esperia ( FR ), Gaeta , Itri , Minturno and Spigno Saturnia . It includes the hamlets ( frazioni ) of Castellonorato, Gianola-Santo Janni, Marànola, Penitro and Trivio. The most famous monument of Formia is the mausoleum traditionally identified with the Tomb of Cicero : it is a 24-metre-high (79 ft) tower on

480-497: The walls and to tufelli for the pillars. A usual, the walls are waterproofed with opus insigninum ( cocciopesto in Italian), smoothing the corners through kerbs placed at their bases. Water was pumped out of the cistern using machines placed on the roof terrace of the cistern, which were extended in the 1st century AD by adding a series of 12 supporting barrel-vaulted rooms on the north-west side. The first work documented

504-573: Was built as a kind of hypostyle hall on a quadrangular plan to obtain four rows of twelve cruciform pillars per row which divide the interior space into five long naves and thirteen courtyards (just as if it were a cathedral , hence its local nicknames of " the Water Cathedral " or the " Cathedral of Bacoli " ). The 48 columns support a barrel vaulted ceiling covered by a roof terrace made of opus caementicium and paved in waterproof opus signinum . The piscina had two entrances (AA),

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528-509: Was given by the 14th c. Tuscan poet Francesco Petrarca on one of his visits. The Piscina Mirabilis was built under Augustus possibly to provide water to the Classis Misenensis in the nearby port of Misenum , which needed large quantities of fresh water for the base itself and for the ships. As it lies 1 km away from the residential and military quarters at Misenum which lay beside each other and which were fed directly by

552-567: Was probably the biggest Roman urban cistern in the world until the Piscina Mirabilis was built at the end of the 1st c. BC. Sextus Julius Frontinus (40 – 104 AD), “Curator Aquarum” of all the aqueducts of Rome, had a villa in Formiae in which Aelianus met the emperor Nerva . The city was the site of St Erasmus 's martyrdom around 303 AD, during the persecutions of Diocletian . St Erasmus later also became known as Saint Elmo,

576-605: Was the king of the Laestrygones . Formiae was founded by the Italic population of the Aurunci . It was called Formiae (derived from Hormia or Ormiai , after its excellent landing) by ancient authors. It appeared for the first time in history in 338 BC when, after the Latin Wars , it received the Roman status of Civitas sine suffragio as it remained neutral, together with the city of Fondi . Throughout antiquity

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