Part 2: The Stratigraphy : Trenches in the Area of the Forum, and IX D North : Forum V : Phase IIIa: Augustan Reoccupation and Renovation

This reoccupation seems to have substantially changed the arrangement of the service suite. The ÏbasinÓ in L and the drain in P were both filled in and leveled in preparation for the placement of new floors. The fill of the drain consisted of a level of dark soil containing chunks of limestone (321), covered by a thin layer of bright red soil with mortar inclusions (317). The exact nature of these fills is unclear; they may represent sediment from use covered by pis» collapse from the Republican house, or they may simply be earth brought in to level the room during the Augustan reconstruction. The same ambiguity holds true for the fill of the ÎbasinÌ (329), where our stratigraphic uncertainty is even more marked; it is likely, however, that the fill is a product of the reconstruction. Once these features had been filled, a new signinum floor (186) was laid in L, separated from the preceding floor only by a very thin layer of blackish soil (325), perhaps nothing more than the dirt accumulated during the abandonment of the house. In conjunction with this new floor, the original area of room L was divided into two roughly equal parts by a thin pluteus (188). This wall was built entirely of packed earth plastered on both sides, without foundation: it probably functioned as the wall of a washbasin in O, the room formed to the east. O was also provided with a drain and quarter-round moldings. Elsewhere on the site, these moldings are understood to mark putei (washing areas), since they are designed to prevent large quantities of water from seeping into the seams of walls. It appears that this room was constructed to take over the washing functions previously served by the much cruder ÏbasinÓ and ÏdrainÓ in L and P. P itself seems to have been constructed as a cooking area. A new beaten-earth floor (179) was probably laid at this point. Its somewhat ashy composition and the presence of a 0.8m. wide pis» feature (189), possibly a cooking platform, along the south wall of the room, both suggest the identification of this room as a culina or kitchen.

In the bath complex, change was less drastic. The thin-wall pottery dating the fill of the soak-away pit (291/380) indicates that the pit continued to be used during the Augustan reoccupation. A new floor in room N, made of cubilia , probably dates to this period, although it is also possible that it dates to the last republican phase and was simply reused in the Augustan building²⁶. The floor seems to have taken 442 as its boundary and permitted ongoing use of the earlier drain.

Fig. 65: Forum V, the garden after the Augustan reconstruction.

The Augustan reconstruction of the garden area respected the earlier division into areas of agricultural and non-agricultural use (fig. 16 and fig. 65). Along the south and west walls, a hard, red soil full of plaster and tile fragments (370) seems to be pis» collapse from this house or elsewhere used to create a hard-packed walking surface. This deposit sloped down sharply away from the walls, and in the depression thus created in the northeast two-thirds of the garden, a richer, cleaner, softer brown planting soil was laid down (369). This layer provided clear Augustan dates both in its ceramic evidence and in a coin of 7 B.C. (catalogue n. 51). The only evidence for planting pits in this phase of the garden was found in 370 near the northwest end of the fountain, which remained in use in this period. There, a small, irregular hole roughly lined with rock and tile (385, filled with 384) may have been intended to hold a small ornamental tree or shrub. The small size and total isolation of this cut, however, make it possible that it served some other unknown purpose.

Fig. 16: Axonometric reconstruction of the triclinium and garden in the Augustan Period.

At the same time, another notable modification was made to the garden: a gutter was added along the edge of the pavement of the loggia. This gutter was made up of blocks of unequal lengths and widths, although the channel cut in each was perfectly aligned from block to block. Such an arrangement probably represents the reuse of blocks from the gutter of another structure; the size and workmanship of the stones may indicate an original installment as part of a public building or space²⁷. The gutter was set in a construction trench only slightly wider than the widest blocks (397), and leveled by a fill (396/406) including a partially intact clay jar set on its side. The outlet for this gutter was never ascertained, despite thorough excavation in the space left between it and the south wall of the garden. It may have communicated in some unknown manner with the rear soak-away pit or with some other basin or recipient. Runoff collected at the end of the drain could then have been used to water the garden. The presence of a substantial feature at the south end of the drain is also suggested by a later intrusion in that area, perhaps to be associated with robbing activity.

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26. Whether this floor belongs later or earlier in the 1st c. B.C., it provides additional support for the interpretation of room N as a bath room. In his abovementioned discussion of earlier baths in Etruria (supra, n. 16), H. Broise notes that cubilia pavements can be taken as an almost incontrovertible indicator of the presence of bathing facilities (p. 88, citing houses previously excavated at Cosa, among other sites).

27. R. Scott has suggested that these blocks were taken from the gutter of the forum portico, and noted that very few of the blocks that made up the portico gutter were found during excavations in the forum (R. Scott, pers. comm., June 1996).