In 1987 the University of Bologna’s Department of Archaeology investigated the Roman city of Suasa, municipium of the VI Augustan region (Umbria), situated in the hinterland of Senigallia. The excavations uncovered large part of a mid Imperial domus, preceded by a late Republican complex, with important mosaics and wall paintings and located the city’s necropolis. Moreover, the amphitheatre has been uncovered for some time whilst the completed excavation of the large forum (c. 100 × 60 m), dating to the first decades of the 1st century A.D., is more recent. The forum was preceded by Republican phases which included a cult area. Aerial photography located the theatre just to the west of the amphitheatre.
Recent investigations undertaken in the domus of the Coeidii involved almost the entire area of the rear peristyle courtyard. A raising of the floor level in the peristyle courtyard and a general reorganisation of the area in the 3rd century A.D. was revealed. The construction of private baths perhaps dates to the same period. The baths, in the eastern sector of the excavation, were below a layer of rubble and had at least three heated rooms and a larger one that was not heated. The three rooms, on a north-south alignment with traces of hypocaust, are rectangular and the last one to the south has a large apse on the south wall. The structure went out of use between the 5th and 6th century A.D., as attested by the find of the point from a small amphora (spatheion), when the whole area was covered with rubble in which numerous tombs were then dug.
The headless torso of a male nude statue with traces of metal cramps on the back was found within this fill. Originally the statue must have been positioned against a wall or in a niche but it is not possible to say whether it was in the bath complex The tombs excavated are simple, built with re-used materials and without grave goods. As they all cut the rubble which covers the entire area their terminus post quem is constituted by the rubble layer itself. The presence of a tomb that pre-dates the rubble dump attests the first phase of the bath’s abandonment, during which the area was still practicable, before its total obliteration by the rubble. (MiBAC)