Albintimilium
A contracted form of the name of the Ligurian center Albium Intemelium, of which nothing is known, was used by the Roman city founded (2d-1st c. B.C.) on the same site between the Roia and Nervia rivers in the narrow coastal plain. The city prospered until the 5th c. A.D. Surrounded by walls with round towers whereever the wall changed direction, the city had straight, paved streets, and dry-block buildings.
Stratigraphic excavations have revealed the different phases of the development of the city through evidence gained from pottery. In the 1st c. A.D., the old Republican walls of the city were destroyed and the city was enlarged with new insulae and a new monumental paved road. To the S, the necropolis was extended and included numerous monumental tombs, enclosed and rich in funerary furnishings. Of the houses only a few of the mosaic pavements surrounding them have been uncovered. The major remaining monument is the theater, constructed during the first half of the 2d c. A.D. It was built over an angle of the Republican walls and some other buildings that had been destroyed earlier.
BIBLIOGRAPHYP. Barocelli, “Albintimilium,” Monumenti Antichi di Liguria 29 (1923); N. Lamboglia, Liguria romana 1 (1938) 90; id., Gli scavi di A. e la cronologia della ceramica romana (1950); id., “Primi risultati cronologici e storico-topografici degli scavi di A.,” Riv. St. Lig. 22 (1956) 91ff; id., Ventimiglia romana (1964).
A. FROVA