DESCRIPTION
A remarkable building, identified thanks to aerial photography and magnetometric surveys, is the Augusteum of Forum Sempronii. It was already known thanks to a seventeenth-century manuscript, which narrates the discovery of a building covered with precious marble and, above all, the contextual discovery of the famous bronze statue of Victoria, now preserved at the museum in Kassel. The structure is located on the eastern edge of the Forum. In 2013, with a joint operation between the Archaeological Superintendency of Marche Region and University of Urbino, it was unhearthed the monumental building of about 12 × 18 meters, beside the Flaminia. It is characterized by a plan with very low ratio of width and length, and shows the checkerboard floor with slabs of white and gray marble alternating in 2 x 3 feet (about cm 60 × 90). It is similar to the paving of the Forum of Augustus. The walls were covered with large reddish marble slabs in the socket and other polychrome marbles, constituting geometric figures. On the façade, the monumental structure presented two columns of 59 cm in diameter and two pillars in antis, with five steps matching the central entry, as wide as the intercolumniation. A small apse is preserved in the centre of the opposite side of the building to house the statue of Victoria. During the excavation was also recovered a fragment of an inscribed slab related to the Seviri Augustales, which, together with other similar discoveries in the area of the Roman settlement, must be put in relation with the imperial cult in the city.
Oscar Mei
