Roman Lucca

The oldest news we know of comes from the Roman historian Titus Livius who, in 28 BC, documents the retreat of the Roman consul Sempronius Longus to Lucca, after the repulse suffered by Hannibal.

Lucca took on the appearance of a real inhabited center in the Roman era, when it became a Latin colony in 180 BC. It was then transformed into a municipality about a century later (89 BC).

During this period the first Walls were built, protecting a quadrangular enclosure, which made it a stronghold to defend against attacks from the north. In 56 BC Caesar, Pompey and Crassus met there to consolidate the agreements of the First Triumvirate (60 BC). This meeting was attended by about two hundred senators and many personalities of the Roman political and military elite.

The city's topographical and urban layout remains evident from its Roman past. The urban space was divided into rectangular blocks by orthogonal road axes, the cardos and the decumani.

The Hinge e the Decumanus Maximi, at whose ends the city gates opened, crossed the city from north to south and from east to west, and today coincide with Via Fillungo and Via Cenami, and with Via San Paolino, Via Roma, and Via Santa Croce. Tangent with the Decumanus, and almost at its intersection with the Cardo, stood the ancient Forum, the center of economic and social life, corresponding to today's Piazza San Michele.

The Roman era is also evidenced by the presence of a theatre (on the ruins of which the Church of Sant'Agostino was later built), an amphitheatre, built just outside the Roman walls and reserved for official performances, and some fragments of the city walls.