Amelia - Romans Cisterns
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At the same time the Roman colonists arrived and with them the urbanization of the Umbrian towns begins and around the "oppidum" the urban space starts to expand. In this period the Amerinian Way is reorganized. It linked Nepi (the old Nepet) with Clusium (Chiusi). With the emperor Augustus the romanization of Umbria is completed. It becomes the 6th "regio". In many towns, once turned to municipalities, as for Amelia, radical changes happen: the walls are renewed or enlarged, thermae, theatres, aqueducts and waterworks are built. Like the Monumental Cisterns of Amelia.
In private dwellings "opus reticulatum" and mosaic for the floors is frequently used as we can see in the remains of the "Villae Rusticae" in Lugnano (Pogglo Gramignano), Guardea (Cocciano) and Alviano (Popiliano), which testify the good cultural and economic standard of the owners. The phenomenon of the implantation of "villae" begins in the 1st cent. B. C., with the rearrangement of the territory, with the centuriation of a lot of lands already rich in olive-groves, vineyards, orchards (Umbria, and this area particularly were famous for the fertility of their soils). The Roman aristocrats, grandly combining business with pleasure, created the concept of "villa", that is a country house that, besides the main function of a place of production, had that of a place fit for "otium" (leisure). It seems that in this area there were about 50 of them.
The "villa" was a great farm-house including, besides the elegant "domus" of the master, rural buildings and huts for the hundreds (sometimes) of slaves and, scattered in the fields, the "casae" of the farmers. In the successive centuries these rural settlements seem to be thinning out. Quite often they gather in larger properties. Between the 5th and the 6th A. D. the territory already struck by famines and plagues, was the object of devastation and pillage by barbarian peoples.
In the Middle Age, between the 9th and the 11th cent., we see the foundation of Castles, built mostly on hill tops, and scattered throughout the Amerino, as a spontaneous reaction of the great landlords, who, due to the fact they couldn't count on public authorities (Feudal Anarchy), they had to face the Saracen and Magyar raids.
It is the structure of the castles of the Amerino towns, often unaltered, to amaze the ever-increasing visitors.
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