Tre Taverne

Tre Taverne (Latin: Tres Tabernae; Greek: Τρεῖς Ταβέρναι, Treis Tabernai) was a place on the ancient Appian Way, about 50 km (31 miles) from Rome, designed for the reception of travellers, as the name indicates. In the Roman Empire there was also a place of that name (Tres Tabernae Caesaris) in present-day France.

History

Tres Tabernae originated as a post station on the Appian Way (Latin: Via Appia), around the 3rd century BC.

Here, the Christian saint Paul of Tarsus, on his way to Rome, was met by a band of Roman Christians (Acts 28:15). The "Tres Tabernae was the first mansio or mutatio, that is, halting-place for relays, from Rome, or the last on the way to the city. At this point three roads run into the Via Appia, that from Tusculum, that from Alba Longa, and that from Antium; so necessarily here would be a halting-place, which took its name from the three shops there, the general store, the blacksmith's, and the refreshment-house...Tres Tabernae is translated as Three Taverns."

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition identifies it as "an ancient village of Latium, Italy, a post station on the Via Appia, at the point where the main road was crossed by a branch from Antium". It is by some fixed some 3 m. S.E. of the modern village of Cisterna just before the Via Appia enters the Pontine Marshes, at a point where the modern road to Ninfa and Norba diverges to the north-east, where a few ruins still exist (Grotte di Nottola), 33 m. from Rome. Others believe that it stood at Cisterna itself, where a branch road running from Antium by way of Satricum actually joins the Via Appia. However, excavations that took place at km 58.1 of the Via Appia Nuova between 1993 and 2001 revealed a bath plant and some further buildings.