Town abandoned 1,500 years ago rediscovered after more than 13 years of excavations
How often do you think about the Roman Empire? Well, for some Italian archaeologists, it seems as though that answer is quite a lot.
A lost relic of the Roman Empire managed to stay hidden for 1,500 years, and archaeologists are hailing the exciting new discovery.
The town of Interamna Lirenas - located about halfway between Rome and Naples - has been found and excavated.
It was initially discovered in the 1980s, but mistakenly thought to be a small settlement.
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Now, as the full town is excavated, it's becoming clear this was a large town, complete with housing, a temple, baths and even a roofed theatre.
Strangely, unlike famous sites such as Pompei, Interamna Lirenas was not left due to a natural disaster.
Instead, it looks as though the townspeople just decided to leave the area for an unknown reason.
Excavations in the area began in 2010, but it is only recently that images from the site have been published.
The 13-year study was authored by Dr Alessandro Launaro at the University of Cambridge's Classics Faculty.
He revealed: "Interamna Lirenas was strategically located between a river and a major road, and it was a thriving node in the regional urban network.
"It would have been valuable as he sought to consolidate support across Italy during the civil wars.
"This town continually played its cards right, it was always forging relations with communities between Rome and southern Italy while thriving as a trading hub."
The town lasted for 100 years after the fall of the Roman Empire before being abandoned.
"We believe that local and regional networks (political, social and economic) proved very resilient and allowed life to continue," Dr Launaro told MailOnline.
There are some serious status symbols within the town, with the roofed theater at the top of the list.
"This theatre was a major status symbol," Dr Launaro explains. "It displayed the town’s wealth, power and ambition."
The town also had a large basilica, or town hall, and several shared bath houses.
The town was also seemingly socially mobile, as houses of different sizes and status symbols were packed in next to one another.
190 of the town’s houses (or 84 percent) were small (less than 5,380 square feet), 25 were larger (between 5,380 and 10,700 square feet) and only five were over 10,700.
Dr Launaro's study appears in a new book published today, titled Roman Urbanism in Italy.
Annie Walton