Suburban area, east of the Quaderna stream (hamlet of Osteria Grande), north and south of the via Emilia
SABAP-BO excavations 1988-in-progress (in particular, checks during construction work of various kinds)
In 1988 the excavations for the installation of a new sewerage system were the first opportunity to discover the remains of a district outside the urban area, but closely connected to it; the set of buildings, aligned and juxtaposed along the northern edge of the via Emilia, was partially brought to light, but together with old excavation data, led to a new overview of the eastern suburb of Claterna, in which a mansio, workshops and a necropolis were probably located.
The mansiones (= resting stations) were functional structures of the road network; arranged at regular distances, they were created already in the late republican age to support the cursus publicus (= service to ensure postal communications and the movement of men and goods on behalf of the state), indispensable for controlling the vast conquered territories.
They were used both by lower-middle class people, such as merchants, and by high-ranking people, such as officials or military commanders, up to the imperial court itself; a capillary network, which started out as an exclusive public initiative, but which over time was also extended with services and buildings managed by private individuals.
Of very different types and sizes, they nevertheless had to guarantee services for those who had to travel; they were therefore equipped with stables for transport animals and horse changing, hotels and tabernae, workshops for repairing wagons, sometimes even small thermal baths; they often housed warehouses for goods and open spaces for holding markets.
The complex recognised in the eastern suburbs of Claterna was connected to a particularly efficient road network: not only did it overlook the Via Emilia, at the point immediately outside the town after crossing the Quaderna stream by means of a stone bridge, but it also had a secondary road system allowing access from the rear. Among the artefacts recovered, there are some indicators of craft activities: numerous ferrous slags with a concave-convex profile, similar to those also found in the House of the Blacksmith, and glass ‘frits’ of various colours, the raw material for blowing or shaping pottery and other objects.
Lastly, there are also traces of the presence of a necropolis, although these are still only circumstantial. We know that in Roman times there was a stringent distinction between the space for the living and the space for the dead strictly respected and the main roads were used to give visibility to the tombs, which thus became the social memory of the urban community: the inscriptions reminded passers-by of the names of the deceased, how long they had lived, their families and sometimes even the profession or the public offices they had held.
In the absence of precise excavation data for the moment, scattered information suggests the presence of a large burial ground roughly in front of the present-day Church of San Giorgio. We know, moreover, that there must have been tombs marked by funerary monuments, judging by the architectural fragments decorated with stone material (limestone and marble) that have been found in various places, even in the urban area, within ‘lime kiln’ (= furnaces for the production of lime), where they evidently ended up after the abandonment of Claterna.
Roman law required that tombs should be located well outside urban centres, and Claterna was no exception, which is why the necropolis is located in suburban areas.