← Back to the mapRemains of the ancient Roman river port at Aquileia, Italy
Modern photograph of the Roman river port at Aquileia · Wikimedia Commons

Aquileia

Italia · Roman province·Italy·Founded 181 BCE (Latin colony)

Adriatic gateway to the Danube — a booming port and one of the largest cities in Italy in 117 CE.

A small living Italian town of around 3,000 sitting atop a largely unexcavated Roman city; its archaeological area and basilica are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Excavation history

late 19th c.
Austrian-era archaeologists (Aquileia was under Habsburg rule until 1918) — Systematic archaeological work and a site museum began in this period; most of the ancient city remains unexcavated beneath surrounding fields even today.
2024
Italian archaeological team — A sixth-century basilica built under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I was uncovered — the first large-scale structure found there after decades of excavation in the area.

Notable finds

Relief of the Founding Furrow
Carved in the first century BCE or shortly after, this marble relief shows a magistrate driving an ox-and-cow team along the sulcus primigenius, the plowed furrow that marked out a new Roman colony's sacred boundary — effectively Aquileia's own birth certificate in stone.
National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia
Aquileia Dish
Found near Aquileia and dated to around 30 BCE, this silver-gilt dish carries a mythological relief scene that some read as a veiled portrait of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in the guise of Demeter and Triptolemos.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Amber and Gem Collection
Aquileia sat at the southern end of the Amber Road from the Baltic, and its workshops carved the raw material into jewelry and trinkets for the whole empire — the museum's holdings, over 6,000 pieces of amber, engraved gems and glass drawn largely from the city's own necropolis, form the largest such collection anywhere.
National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia
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Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →