Augusta Bagiennorum (Bene Vagienna): a lost Roman city of Augustus's veterans in Piedmont
On a fertile plateau in the middle Tanaro valley, two kilometres from the little town of Bene Vagienna, the outlines of a whole Roman city lie in the open fields. This was Augusta Bagiennorum, founded by Augustus for his veterans, named for the Ligurian Bagienni, and listed by Pliny the Elder among the notable towns of the region. Theatre, amphitheatre and forum survive on the Roncaglia plain, free to wander from dawn to dusk, with archaeologists from Turin still digging, a genuine lost city in the heart of Piedmont's wine country.
This is archaeology for the imaginative traveller. There is no ticket office at the ruins, no crowd, often no one at all, just a fenced area of fields where a Roman city once stood, with explanatory panels and the bones of its great public buildings rising from the grass. If you need a site handed to you, polished and staffed, this is not it. But if you like the romance of a vanished town read from the ground, in beautiful open country a short drive from Barolo and Bra, Augusta Bagiennorum is a quietly thrilling place, and the recent University of Turin excavations mean it is a city still slowly coming back to light.
A city for Augustus's veterans
Augusta Bagiennorum was founded by the emperor Augustus in the last decades of the 1st century BC, on a fertile plateau in the middle Tanaro valley. Its name honours both the founder and the Bagienni, one of the ancient Ligurian peoples of this country between the Tanaro and the Stura di Demonte; in the Augustan ordering of Italy the area belonged to Regio IX, Liguria. The site was chosen for control as much as farming: it sat on the road linking the middle Tanaro valley to the Alpine foothills and the passes, a strategic point between the Po plain and the mountains. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, listed Augusta Bagiennorum among the notable towns, the nobilia oppida, of the region, so this was no obscure village but a recognised city of some 21 hectares, laid out on the standard Roman grid with all the public buildings a proper town required.
Reading the city from the fields
What survives, and what the University of Turin is still uncovering, lets you trace the shape of the town. The theatre, identified in the late 19th century and heavily restored in the mid-20th, was built on an artificial earthwork, with a cavea around 57 metres across, two tiers of seating for some three thousand spectators, and a scene building 42 metres long; behind the scene runs a quadriportico, a colonnaded courtyard. Just outside the city walls stood the amphitheatre, elliptical, about 105 by 77 metres, of which only the western sector has been excavated, the arena and eastern half still lie unexplored; after antiquity its ruins were even reused for dwellings. At the public heart of the city, the pars publica, are the sacred area with the podium of the main temple, sometimes called the Capitolium, the crossing of the main streets, and the forum with its civic basilica, whose structures remain almost entirely to be explored; a Christian basilica was later raised over the Roman temple. A stretch of the aqueduct survives under the 15th-century country church of San Pietro, and recent digs have opened the tabernae, the shops, of the ancient town. The finds are displayed in the MAB, the archaeological museum in the elegant 18th-century Palazzo Lucerna di Rorà in Bene Vagienna, founded in the early 1900s by Giuseppe Assandria and Giovanni Vacchetta, the two local scholars who located the lost city and excavated it between 1892 and 1925.
| Element | Note |
|---|---|
| Theatre | Cavea about 57 m, two tiers, around 3,000 seats, with a quadriportico; heavily restored |
| Amphitheatre | Elliptical, about 105 by 77 m, outside the walls; only the west sector excavated |
| Forum and sacred area | The temple podium, the basilica and the street crossing, mostly unexplored |
| MAB museum | The finds, in Palazzo Lucerna di Rorà at Bene Vagienna |
A short history in dates
- late 1st c. BC Augustus founds Augusta Bagiennorum for his veterans on the Roncaglia plain.
- 1st c. AD Pliny the Elder lists it among the notable towns of the region.
- to the 3rd c. AD The theatre and amphitheatre are in use; the city flourishes.
- late antiquity A Christian basilica rises over the Roman temple; the amphitheatre is reused.
- 1892 to 1925 Assandria and Vacchetta locate and excavate the lost city.
- recent years The University of Turin excavates the shops of the ancient town.
What nobody tells you
Split your visit between the field and the museum, and time the museum carefully. The archaeological area is free and open every day from dawn to dusk, with panels to guide you, so you can wander the theatre, the amphitheatre and the forum at will; access is by the automatic gate at the theatre or the path from the San Pietro country church. But the finds, the things that bring the stones to life, are in the MAB museum in Bene Vagienna, which has typically opened only at weekends, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, with free guided tours, so plan to come on a weekend if you want both the site and the collection. Set expectations honestly: the theatre was heavily restored last century, much of the city, including the forum and basilica, is still unexcavated farmland, and the amphitheatre is half-dug, so this is a site you read with imagination and the panels, not a monument that overwhelms you. The reward is the romance of a lost city in open country, and the location, deep in the Langhe and Roero wine country near Bra and Barolo, makes it easy to pair with one of Italy's great food-and-wine regions.
Who should skip Augusta Bagiennorum
Honest version. If you want standing monuments and a staffed, every-day site, this is mostly outlines in fields, with a heavily restored theatre and a weekend-only museum, and it will disappoint. If you will not drive and plan around the museum hours, you may see stones without their story. But if the idea of wandering a free, open, almost secret Roman city, a town of Augustus's veterans still being dug, in the heart of Piedmont's wine country, appeals to your imagination, Augusta Bagiennorum is a rare and rewarding find, and one of the most evocative lost cities in the north.
How Rome settled its veterans, and how a lost city is found
Augusta Bagiennorum is a textbook example of one of Rome's most powerful tools of empire: the veteran colony. When a Roman soldier completed his long service, the state owed him land, and rather than scatter discharged men at random, Rome planted them together in newly founded cities on strategic ground. This solved several problems at once. It rewarded the veterans, it placed loyal, militarily capable citizens at key points to hold newly pacified territory, and it spread Roman law, language and town life into the provinces, Romanising the landscape one planned city at a time. A colony like this was laid out by surveyors with almost ritual precision, the land divided into regular plots by the grid of centuriation, the streets crossing at right angles, the forum, temples and entertainment buildings set in their proper places, so that a veteran from anywhere in Italy would find a familiar Roman world reproduced on a Piedmont plateau. The second lesson of Bene Vagienna is how such a city, once abandoned and ploughed over, is recovered. The town was not rediscovered by chance but by patient scholarship: in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the local researchers Giuseppe Assandria and Giovanni Vacchetta read the clues in the fields, the crop marks, the alignments, the scatter of stone, and located the buried city, then excavated its main buildings over three decades. Today the University of Turin continues that work, and the slow emergence of the tabernae and other structures shows that finding a lost city is less a single dramatic moment than a long conversation with the ground, still going on.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Augusta Bagiennorum?
- Augusta Bagiennorum was a Roman city founded by Augustus for his veterans in the late 1st century BC, on the Roncaglia plain about 2 km from modern Bene Vagienna in Piedmont. Covering some 21 hectares, it preserves a theatre, an amphitheatre and a forum in open farmland, with its finds in the MAB museum at Bene Vagienna.
- Who were the Bagienni?
- The Bagienni were one of the ancient Ligurian peoples, settled in the country between the Tanaro and the Stura di Demonte in what is now the province of Cuneo. The Roman city took its name from them and from its founder Augustus, and in the Augustan ordering of Italy the area belonged to Regio IX, Liguria.
- What can you see at the site?
- You can trace the theatre, with a cavea about 57 metres across and a quadriportico behind the scene, the amphitheatre outside the walls of which only the western sector is excavated, and the forum and sacred area with the temple podium and civic basilica, mostly still unexplored. A stretch of aqueduct survives under the church of San Pietro.
- Is it free to visit?
- Yes. The archaeological area is open daily from dawn to dusk and free, with explanatory panels, reached by the automatic gate at the theatre or the path from the San Pietro country church. The MAB museum in Bene Vagienna, which holds the finds, charges admission and has typically opened only at weekends.
- When is the MAB museum open?
- The MAB, the archaeological museum in Palazzo Lucerna di Rorà at Bene Vagienna, has typically opened only at weekends, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, with free guided tours. To see both the site and the finds, plan a weekend visit and confirm the current hours before going.
- How do you get to Augusta Bagiennorum?
- By car via the A6 motorway, then the road toward Bene Vagienna and the Roncaglia locality. By public transport, take a train to Bra, then bus 80 to Bene Vagienna, and walk about 2 km to the archaeological area. A car is much the easier option for combining the site and the museum.
- Is excavation still going on?
- Yes. After the founding excavations by Assandria and Vacchetta between 1892 and 1925, the University of Turin has in recent years been excavating the tabernae, the shops, of the ancient town, so Augusta Bagiennorum is a lost city still slowly being brought back to light.
- How was the lost city of Augusta Bagiennorum found?
- By patient scholarship rather than chance. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the local researchers Giuseppe Assandria and Giovanni Vacchetta read the clues in the fields, crop marks, alignments and scattered stone, located the buried city, and excavated its main buildings between 1892 and 1925. The University of Turin continues that work today.