Analisi diacronica delle dinamiche insediative di una città e del suo suburbio. Il caso di Aquinum.

The thesis offers a diachronic reconstruction of settlement dynamics in the urban and suburban area of Aquinum, a Roman colony in the middle Liri valley, between the Roman period and the early Middle Ages. Its main aim is to define the role, structure and transformations of the suburbium as a transitional zone between town and countryside, understood not as a marginal space but as a functional and morphological area closely integrated with the urban centre and its road and water networks. The research adopts a multidisciplinary approach that combines geomorphological analysis, a critical reassessment of the history of studies, systematic use of historical aerial photographs (RAF and U.S. Air Force flights), excavation data, field surveys, geophysical prospections (in particular magnetometry), and GIS tools for the creation of a geo-referenced and searchable archaeological map. On the basis of the density and type of evidence, the suburbium of Aquinum is delimited within roughly one mile of the city walls and subdivided into sectors (northern, western, southern, eastern), each characterised by specific functional vocations: necropoleis laid out along the main road axes, rural villas and productive complexes along the foothill belt, craft areas and infrastructures connected with the exploitation of water resources and travertine. The diachronic analysis shows how the development of the suburbium proceeds in parallel with the phases of expansion, reorganisation and contraction of the town: from the regular layout linked to the Via Latina and centuriated road network, to the spread of the rural villa model in the imperial age, through to Late Antique restructuring, the spoliation of monumental buildings and the thinning out of settlement between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with reuses of a predominantly productive character. In conclusion, the case of Aquinum makes it possible to propose an interpretative model of the Roman suburbium as a dynamic space, morphologically and functionally hybrid, in which relations between the urban community, infrastructures, natural resources and the agricultural landscape are continually renegotiated.