Excavations done between 1920 and 1930 underneath the church in Villa St. Silvestro, a mountain hamlet in the Municipality of Cascia, on the Altipiano di Chiavano, just a few kilometers from the border with the Province of Rieti, brought to light the podium and various architectural and decorative elements from a large Roman temple dating back to the 3rd century B.C. (Fig. 1 and 2).

Despite its great size and its importance toward understanding the history of the area in Roman times, following the discovery of this monument of great interest it was forgotten for a long time, until onsite research conducted by the Superintendence for Archeological Heritage of Umbria in the 1980s brought to light the brick columns of a portico at the back of the temple, along with other materials, including numerous fragments of architectural terracottas. Excavation work resumed in 2003, under the scientific direction of Prof. Filippo Coarelli of the University of Perugia, by the authority of the Superintendence for Archeological Heritage of Umbria. The project began with the study of the same temple; only two other comparable temples are known (in Sora and Isernia), which are much less well-preserved.

The research program included sample excavations aimed at understanding the details of the building techniques and construction characteristics, magnetic prospecting of the soil (searching for non-evident structures) and the study of the site by means of aerial photography, as well as the systematic surveying of all the architectural materials found in the area and not yet published. The results were surprising. The excavation and surveys show that the temple underwent two building stages (both very elaborate), with initial construction taking place in the early 3rd century B.C., i.e. shortly after the Roman conquest of Sabinium, and a renovation in an even more monumental form, inspired by the architectural models found in Rome in the early 1st century B.C.

The combined analysis of the results of the prospecting and of the photos of the area proved the soundness of one of the initial hypotheses: a temple this big (30 x 20 meters) would not have been built isolated on this plain at an elevation of 1200 meters, but must have been part of a settlement that was much larger and more complex.Starting with these elements, the August 2007 excavation campaign brought to light a section of the forum that surrounded the temple. Thus the temple was at the middle of the rear short end of a vast square enclosed by brick columns, which must have measured about 120 x 60 meters (Fig. 3). One fourth of the area of the forum was uncovered, including a series of rooms probably used in part as shops, a small sacellum or shrine with an apse, used for worship, and a structure for water, possibly a cistern, that faces the outside of the forum (Fig. 4-5). The structures that have come to light, which are still being studied, reveal that the forum, like the temple, was built in different stages, while the finds show that the area was being used from the 3rd to the 1st century B.C.

It seems natural, therefore, to connect the construction of the forum with the imposing of the rule of Rome (which took place with the consul Curius Dentatus in 290 B.C.), who, in order to ensure the control of the area, built a forum in an area where a population of mainly farmers and breeders lived scattered about the land and far from any towns, as a place for carrying out public, civil and religious activities, which otherwise would not have had a well-defined gathering place. In the forum, the market was held, taxes were paid, acts of public life were carried out, and the praefectus of Nursia presumable came here to administer justice on scheduled days. An inscription from the 2nd century B.C., a fragment of which was used as a building stone in a wall built in a later period, attests to the worship of the god Terminus in the Villa San Silvestro area, a purely Roman deity who preserves and defends limits and borders.

The choice of the site was not random – it is the largest plain in the area, after that of Norcia. The forum was built at the place that has the only springs in the area and, above all, where a branch of the Via Salaria going past Leonessa met with the transhumance routes and the pass that went through Monteleone di Spoleto and made it possible to reach Spoleto and the Via Flaminia. The reasons why the area was abandoned so soon – according to what has been found so far, it was frequented for only three centuries – have yet to be investigated.

A vast area was discovered east of the forum during the 2007 excavations, delimited by a triple series of arcades with brick columns and pilasters, at the center of which appeared a rectangular structure, probably a temple with two cells, thus dedicated to a pair of gods. These structures form an even larger complex than that of the forum, but the total area they covered cannot yet be calculated as the excavation work is still in the early stages (Fig. 6). Besides the particular characteristics regarding the type of construction and the division of spaces, it seems significant that this area was not abandoned, as occurred with the forum. Instead it was still being used in the Lombard period, as is proved by two tombs, probably from that time, that were unearthed during the excavations.