Managing the marshes: An integrated study of the centuriated landscape of the Pontine plain

Archaeological prospections and geo-archaeological data allow us to consider both when the centuriation was established and how its role in managing and exploiting the Pontine wetland changed through time. It probably dates to the late 4th or early 3rd century BCE and presumably is one of the first of its kind. It was established in the context of Rome's territorial, economic and demographic expansion and represented a large-scale reclamation that expanded Rome's agricultural hinterland, providing dwellings, farmland and a new life for numerous colonists. But the exploitation of the Pontine wetland by a system of small farms that occupied the centuriated area proved not to be sustainable: within two centuries settlement had decreased significantly and by the Imperial period only a few sites remained, some of which represent elite-controlled estates. The decline of settlement and its associated land use system can be explained by a series of socio-economic, political and environmental factors, including Rome's on-going territorial expansion, changing elite interests in the area as well as environmental change. Individual features of the centuriation, however, remained in use for considerable time. Even though medieval and post-medieval reclamations used parcelling systems with a different orientation, the main channels associated with the centuriation remained the basis for later attempts to drain the Pontine wetland.