2,000 years back was surely as lovely a way to pass the time as it is today. From the ancient Roman city of Vienna-modern Vienne-one of the most pleasant places to stroll would have been a wealthy neighborhood of homes,shops, and bathrooms now called Saint-Romain-en-Gal. During recent excavations in progress of construction there, archaeologists in the French company Archeodunum have unearthed artifacts which speak to the privileged lifestyles of its ancient residents.
Among the things they’ve uncovered are colorful fresco fragments, pottery decorated with a spectacle of gladiatorial combat, and 2 six-inch-tall terracotta figurines, one depicting the favorite picture of Venus emergingfrom her bathroom and the other a bearded guy whose identity isn’t yet known. Archeodunum archaeologist Jerome Grasso considers the statuettes were found right where they had been left, perhaps in a private act of devotion. “It is going to imagine that someone carefully put them there for an unknown reason nearly 2,000 years back, and that they were not proceeded until we rediscovered them”Grasso says.A stone bench the team discovered also brings to mind a day spent relaxing riverside. Says Grasso,”I could certainly imagine people sitting on the bench we found looking at the passing ships on the river “