STUDI E RESTAURI ARCHEOLOGICI A SABRATHA E LEPTIS MAGNA DELL’UNIVERSITÀ DI MACERATA (2009-2014). L’attività a Leptis Magna. L’attività del Politecnico di Bari al Foro Vecchio: la Curia

This study has been carried on in 2008-2010 by the team of the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the Polytechnic of Bari and presents the results of a recent review of the architecture of the Curia in the Old Forum of Lepcis Magna, excavated by G. Guidi in the Thirties and then remained largely unpublished. The building fits the category of temples inside porticoes (templa cum porticibus), with a monumental access in form of a propylon. Morphological characteristics, building materials and structural considerations refer to the first century A.D., not later than the Flavian period. This chronology, much more ancient than the fourth century suggested by R. Bartoccini, which thought that the building had been realized within an older temple, allows to give the monument a particular importance in relation to the Curia Julia in Rome, whose model could have been widespread in Roman Africa by the Lepcitan building itself. If this is true, the Curia of Leptis Magna could be considered as the most vivid memory of the lost urban monument.