Aternum, Archaeological site near Pescara, Italy.

Aternum is an ancient Roman city located near the mouth of a river on the Adriatic coast, in the area that is now Pescara. The remains include building foundations, harbor structures, and other urban elements that together show how the settlement was organized and used.

Aternum was the eastern terminus of the Via Tiburtina Valeria, the road that linked Rome to the Adriatic coast and on toward the eastern provinces. Its harbour handled commercial and fishing ships and was reportedly also used for military purposes. The settlement never rose to the rank of municipium. The monumental bridge was built by the emperor Tiberius, not Augustus.

The name Aternum comes from the river Aternus, now the Pescara, at whose mouth the town lay; in imperial times it was also called Ostia Aterni, as marked on the Tabula Peutingeriana. The Vestini ran a harbour here from the 1st century BC, also used by the Marrucini and Peligni, and the settlement kept the name Aternum until around the year 1000, when it became Piscaria.

Aternum lies beneath present-day Pescara, at the mouth of the Aternus, now the Pescara River, so the ancient site is not a single fenced excavation. Look for the Roman traces in Pescara Vecchia, the old quarter on the river's south bank, and use the river mouth as your orientation point. The Via Tiburtina and its extension, the Via Valeria, met the sea here.

Some of the objects found at the site carry inscriptions with the actual names of people who lived there, which is relatively rare for a town of this size. These personal traces turn what could feel like a field of stones into something much more human and close.