Villa Neroniana (Nero's Villa ruins)

The current remains of the villa are those saved from the periodic collapses that were interrupted only with the construction of the breakwaters. They are divided between the condominium in via Ardeatina 7 and the villa in via di Villa Neroniana. Of particular importance is the mosaic in black and white tiles that decorated the peristilium with impluvium (1st century BC)

Big villa Cicerone

Not open to visitors, private This opus reticulatum villa, whose origins are difficult to discern, was built at the end of the Republic or rather in the early Augustan period. Only the quadrangular atrium with the impluvium remains today. Created from a larger opus reticulatum room, the atrium had walls covered in cipollino marble and a black and white mosaic floor decorated with a motif of interlocking circles. The atrium is square with sides measuring 8 meters, and the mosaic decoration—in keeping with the brick walls—is arranged in a band around the square pool, 4 meters on each side. The pool, missing its original corners and with some traces of its marble facing, is between two bands of black tesserae. The ornamental motif consists of interlocking circles with overlapping parts in black. The resulting hexagons with concave sides are decorated in the center with a rosette motif. The motif of intertwined circles is quite common in the 2nd century AD and finds precise confirmation in Ostia Antica.

Cicero's Villa Some Notes on the Identification of Cicero's Villa at Anzio From "Ancient Mosaics in Italy - First Region - Antium," edited by Valnea Santa Maria Scrinari and Maria Luisa Morricone Matini, C.N.R., published in 1975 by the Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, Rome. Page 9: Along with the frequent clusters of villa ruins along the roads leading to Anzio and from Anzio to Circei and Terracina, the most vivid and effective source is Cicero: he is constantly trading between his properties in Formia (II, 8); Arpinum (II, 8); Tusculum (II, 9); and Rome (II, 8). Yet he stays in Antium more willingly than anywhere else (II, 6) and insists on inviting his friend Atticus (IV, 4a) and solicits his help in organizing his library (IV, 4a - IV, 5 - IV, 8). He will indeed have the help of the freedman Tyrannius (IV, 4a) and then of the two librarians Dionysus and Menophilus in 56 BC that Atticus procures for him. Meanwhile, he tells his friend that Antium hosts excellent gladiatorial contests (IV, 4a) and that the games are held there in early May (II, 8). He also explains how to reach his villa: "de via recta in hortos" (IV, 5) and in describing it, he clearly refers to its location by the sea... aut libris me delecto... aut fluctus numero (II, 6). There is yet another piece of information that interests us: Atticus wanted to buy some house or villa, and Cicero in 56 BC explained to him that he could find nothing already built to buy in the countryside, nor "in oppido est quiddam (IV, 8) ... et proximum quidem nostris aedibus." This is essential information for identifying Cicero's villa "in oppido," that is, on the coast of Antium, still an oppidum, that is, surrounded by its beautiful Volscian rampart. If the road leading there has no particular name but is simply called recta and passes not through the city but through the vegetable gardens, that is, tangent to the countryside, we can well imagine the villa on the western coast, recognizing it as one of the many settlements that today overlook the edge of the northernmost cliff of the great imperial complex. It is likely that this is the villa he sold years later to Lepidus and that he mentions in the letter to Atticus from Astura, where he evidently owned a new property and stayed in 45 BC. C. (XIII, 47 a).