Cosa - Cosa Under The Empire

Cosa Under The Empire

Cosa appears to have been affected by an earthquake in 51, which occasioned the reconstruction of the republican Basilica as an Odeon under the supervision of Lucius Titinius Glaucus Lucretianus, who also worked on the Capitoline temple; however, as early as 80, Cosa seems to have been almost deserted. It was revived under the emperor Caracalla, during whose reign the portico around the forum and the odeon were restored, a Mithraeum was constructed in the basement of the Curia, and a sanctuary to Liber erected at the southeast end of the Forum. The new town did not last long, however, and by the 4th century only the sanctuary of Liber was periodically visited. In the early 6th century some occupation in the ruins is attested by pottery and the remains of a church have been found built onto the Basilica. Perhaps at the same time the Arx was occupied by a fortified farm, subsequently transformed into a small fortified outpost under Byzantine control. This was abandoned in the late 6th or early 7th century. It is possible that the intermittent nature of the occupation of the town was due to the fact that, already in the early Empire, malaria was hyperendemic on the coast of Tuscany.