Rome's Newest Archaeological Site: Horrea Piperataria

Right off the Forum, under the Basilica Maxentius, one of the last imperial showpieces of Rome, there's a quiet doorway. No signage, no crowds, but it transports you back to the 1st century AD. This is the Horia Piperitaria, Rome's imperial spice warehouse. Long buried, now finally reopened. And I'm walking you inside. This is the newest archaeological site open to the public in the Roman Forum, a Domitianic era warehouse once filled with the most precious goods in the empire. Pepper, frankincense, medicinal herbs. A site buried by fire, sealed for centuries beneath imperial grandeur, and now finally revealed. Let's explore this site and neighborhood of the Forum that has recently been reopened to the public. All right, something new in the Roman Forum. It's a site. You need a ticket to get inside. It's going to be the Horia Piperitaria. It's going to be a warehouse used for storing incense and pepper from India. So this was a great warehouse, right along the Via Sacra. And right below me here, you can see another road that's preserved, now accessible to the public on a daily basis. And this is going to be the Vicus Ad Carinus, which will take you over to a portion of the Appian Ridge. So incredible history, incredible new access to a huge portion of the Roman Forum area, the big firewall behind me that belongs to the Forum of Peace. And you get something extraordinary because you can explore the remains of the warehouse both here. This is Domitianic in date. And then you can go inside. We take you inside for a special visit underneath the Basilica of Maxentius. The Horia Piperitaria is located in this newly opened section along this street, newly accessible to the public. It lets you walk through layers of history. On your left, the Forum of Peace built by Vespasian. On your right, the remains of the Horia Piperitaria. And just ahead, through the massive arches of the Basilica of Maxentius. This road even passes under the Basilica, clear evidence of how important it was in antiquity. Scholars debate the name, but many believe this street was the Vicus Ad Carinus, leading to the elite neighborhood of the Carinae on the Esquiline near the Temple of Tellus. Here's an incredible opportunity. It's a new part of the Forum that you can explore. Look at that gigantic firewall for the Temple of Peace passing right underneath a portion of the Basilica Maxentius. This is a road that always remains open and viable. Look at the road here on the other side that is preserved. And where are we? At this point, we're directly behind the Forum of Peace that is going to be magnificently reconstructed under the severance. And we still have so much of the marble paneling still preserved, even some collapsed columns from an earthquake in the shadow of the much later Basilica of Maxentius. Access to the Vicus Ad Carinus now gives us this great view into the newly excavated remains of the Forum of Peace, built by Vespasian and rebuilt by Septimius Severus after the fire of Commodus in 191. We are standing behind the Forum's Temple of Peace, looking in at the preserved marble pavement, collapsed granite columns, and have a view of the wall of the hall that contained the former herbus marble plan. Before we enter the subterranean site, we can already view a portion of the spice warehouse of Domitian outside. We can see the exterior walls still preserved that are reused for the construction of the Basilica of Maxentius above. How exciting is this? You've got the foundations here of the Horia Preparataria and even the wall behind me. And then what's built behind it at a greater scale is the Basilica of Maxentius. A lot of incredible layers of history going all the way back to the original Horia of Domitian. So we can look down on the remains of the Julio-Claudian structures past the Domitianic era wall and up to the standing remains of the Basilica of Maxentius looming above. We can also peer down at its foundations to see an opus facadum floor from an earlier Julio-Claudian building maybe abandoned after the fire of Nero. And the fill in this area, when it was abandoned, was with tuff blocks from an unknown Republican-era building. Over here are the remains of a late antique bath in the remains of the Horia Preparataria. Such incredible reuse of space in the Forum area. Fronting the area of the Horia along the Via Sacra are the remains of a late antique house of the 12th century with this portico. You can see some of the medieval and later structures, which also had a granary, in this 17th century drawing before Lanciani's excavations. Let's now examine further the interior spaces of the new site, the Horia Preparataria, with the central courtyard surrounded by small rooms, multiple-storied in origin. They were discovered and excavated by Maria Barroso in 1915. Excavations led by Domenico Palombi of the Sapienza have revealed that there were earlier structures underneath the warehouse. Here's a curved wall of unknown purpose with an opus vicatum floor, Giulio Claudian in date. Subsequently, there was constructed a series of massive piers, possibly part of a large unfinished complex in the time of Nero for his sprawling Domus Aurea complex. This reconstruction helps us envision Nero's plan for a huge vaulted structure, possibly Horia, warehouse structures. But the real treat is to walk within the series of terraced warehouses arranged around open courtyards for the storage of spices like pepper and incense. These reconstructions help us envision its original environment. So why was it buried? In 191 during the reign of Commodus, central Rome went up again in flames, devastating part of the Forum and the Forum of Peace. Theo Cassius recorded the event and told us what was destroyed. Buildings along the Sacred Way, including the Horia Piperetaria, where Arabian and Indian spices and luxury goods were kept. Across the Via Sacra, the Horia of Vespasian remained in use, but the Horia Piperetaria remains were buried and forgotten beneath the imposing remains of Rome's last great basilica, built under the Emperor Maxentius in the early 4th century AD. The visit to the site today traces its history, beginning with the imposing ruins of the basilica, with impressive virtual reality reconstructions. Let's continue our tour, noticing at the remains of piers, in particular these later 2nd century editions, of added troughs pushed up against these piers for added storage. Note the opus picatum floors and the remains of steps to upper levels and the central fountain preserved. We can admire vivid reconstructions of the warehouses that were essentially locked banks protecting expensive commodities, as described by Pliny the Elder. Arabia alone produces frankincense and myrrh, peppers brought to us from India, and Tacitus says the treasures of Arabia and India are carried to Rome at immense cost. And we can understand this great cost when we look at the trade route. Traders from Petra to Misuris in India brought these treasures along desert caravans and sea lanes across the Indian Ocean, routes that led into Alexandria and from there to Rome, and then stored here in the Horia For a more in-depth discussion of the spice trade, watch the video on Ancient Rome Live on YouTube. All right I think it's safe to say that you want to put this on your itinerary when you come to the Roman Forum. Now you can walk down the street that leads you to the Carinae. You can be underneath the Basilica Maxentius. You can explore the wonders of an incredible warehouse. This is a warehouse that we know housed Arabian incense and pepper from India, the Horia Veritatia. An incredible amount of history that's been reclaimed underneath the Basilica Maxentius, so it seals over that warehouse structure that gets destroyed by the fire of 192, preserving it for archaeologists. What an incredible discovery, and now it's accessible to the public for the first time. Even more exciting is the opportunity to explore newly opened areas of the Roman Forum and its legacy of buildings from the Julio-Claudians to late antiquity. Subscribe to Darius Aria for more immersive history, and I'll see you next week.