L'ultimo esilio. Nuovi dati sull’occupazione della villa ‘di Giulia’ a Ventotene (LT) e sulla cultura materiale centro-italica alla fine del I secolo d.C.

Since the 1980s, the island of Ventotene, in the Pontine archipelago, has been the focus of intensive research on its historical and archaeological heritage, particularly from to the Early Imperial period. Following the untimely death of Giovanni Maria De Rossi, who had directed most of these investigations, SABAP for the Provinces of Frosinone and Latina involved the Department of Ancient World Studies of the Sapienza - Università di Roma to study and publish the numerous unpublished archeological excavations and their findings, initiating a new phase of research on the island. This contribution presents the first results of the study conducted in a sector (the so-called ‘services area’) of the imperial villa located on the promontory of Punta Eolo. This complex is renowned as a place of exile for some prominent women of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian gentes. Among them was Julia, the eldest daughter of Augustus, who resided there for a brief period, and from whose name the modern toponym of the villa originates. The reassessment of documentation from research conducted between 2001 and 2006 in the ‘services area' has enabled to reconstruct the abandoned of this complex, which occurred at the end of the 1st century CE following the deliberate infilling of its structures with substantial soil deposits. These deposits yielded an extensive assemblage of material, including over 3,700 estimated examples of pottery and glassware. A detailed analysis of these specimens enhanced our understanding of the supply patterns that characterized Ventotene at the end of the 1st century CE – a period corresponding to the last exile mentioned in literary sources – placing the island within the Mediterranean trade networks of this phase.