However just before you get to Carsulae the old and new roads separate

The old road runs along by itself for per couple of kilometres through oak woods, and it is here that you can find the ruins of the old town.

Parking beside the modern road we walked esatto the archaeological site along a path through fields of young green barley, with poppies and wild orchids lining the path, and wild roses mediante the hedgerows.

It took some effort for me preciso try and mentally superimpose an image https://datingranking.net/it/livelinks-review/ of bustling Roman Carsulae on what is now a sleepy rural scene. An oak wood has grown up within the northern boundary of the town, and a small flock of sheep and goats was grazing under the trees.

For me the best way sicuro try and visualise it was preciso walk along the Via Flaminia as it goes through the middle of the town from south preciso north. You via by coming up verso hill and then encounter the first ruins. If you turn around and immagine back down the hill, you are looking at the road from Rome.

Carsulae: looking back down the Modo Flaminia durante the direction of Narni and Rome. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click onesto enlarge)

Turn around again, and up puro the left there are the remains of baths, built over natural thermal springs. Away onesto the right is some slightly more modern architecture – the church of Saints Cosmas and Damiano, built per early Christian times on the foundations of an existing building, then extended mediante the 11 th Century using material scavenged from elsewhere on the site. Passing that, we get to the site of the forum, on raised ground sicuro the left. Parts of it, including the entry arch, have been re-erected, which purists might object preciso but I don’t mind.

Like this:

Carsulae: the Modo Flaminia passes the entrance puro the forum. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 40mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge) Carsulae: looking east towards the amphitheatre from the forum. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click onesto enlarge)

A Visit preciso Narnia

Continuing uphill along the road you can see the remains of a theatre and amphitheatre off preciso the right, and then the road runs into the oak wood. Looking down you can see that the paving stones durante the road are grooved by chariot and cart wheels, as they are at Pompeii.

Carsulae: the Cammino Flaminia with wheel ruts. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click preciso enlarge)

The road starts sicuro run downhill again and you reach the remains of a substantial town gate, beyond which the road bears left into more oak woods. This is where the northbound legions would have passed on their way puro Rimini and beyond. I have mai pensiero whether the land was wooded or cleared sopra ancient times, but sopra my imagination I saw the legionaries marching away through the gate into the cool shade of the wood, puro be lost from view.

Carsulae was abandoned by the 5th Century. The Wikipedia article says that the reason is unknown, but that it could have been destroyed by an earthquake, or during the wars and invasions at the end of the Roman periodo, or that it may have become impoverished after road traffic dwindled. Signs at the site say that the town was abandoned because its position sopra relatively open country meant that it could not be defended sopra troubled times.

However just before you get to Carsulae the old and new roads separate