ANZIO. – Volscian city 58 km from Rome, with a famous harbor (Caenon), subjugated by the Romans in 338 B.C., who, toward the end of the Republic, populated it with villas along the coast. It reached the apex of its development in the time of Nero, who, having been born there, enlarged its harbor and built a new imperial villa on the western shore.
The necropolis, in the area west of the lighthouse, with groups of tombs dating between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., whose grave goods closely resemble those of the Alban Hills, suggests a primitive Latin rather than Volscian population. More important, however, is the hypogeal tomb with three rooms, with loculi arranged in some places in two rows along the walls; this tomb was discovered in 1938, just north of the present-day cemetery, and its right-hand chamber has the form of a catacomb gallery. As in the Etruscan tombs, the three entrance doors open at the end of an uncovered dromos. The funerary furnishings of more than 50 dead, buried intact and wrapped in bandages, consisted of Etruscan-Campanian pottery, mirrors, strigils, necklaces, spindle whorls, etc., all of excellent workmanship; their production may therefore be assigned to the period between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the third century B.C.
While pagan remains are abundant, the archaeological evidence for the primitive Church of Anzio is extremely meager: an inscription (SPES IN DEO [CIL, X, 6762]) on travertine, surmounted by a large ivy leaf, itself surmounted by two palmettes.
On the basis of the ductus of the letters and the formula characteristic of the age of the persecutions, the inscription is to be considered earlier than the Constantinian peace.
Among the earliest Christian records of A. must also be counted the « massa urbana in territorio antiatino praestans solidos CCXL », donated by Constantine to the Lateran basilica (Lib. Pontif., I, ed. L. Duchesne, p. 174).
At A., according to the testimony of Hippolytus (Philosophumena, IX, 12), Pope Victor (189–99) exiled Callistus, who had just returned from Sardinia. But from the passage cited it cannot be established with certainty that between the end of the second century and the beginning of the following one there already existed a Christian community, and still less a church attached to a cemetery, as Harnack maintains, although it cannot be ruled out that Callistus propagated the Christian faith there during his stay.
The names of three of its bishops who were present at the Roman synods of 465 (Gaudentius), 487 (Felix), and 499–502 (Vindemius) are known.
During the schism under Pope Boniface (418–422), his rival Eulalius withdrew to A., to the shrine of S. Ermete, known only from the Liber Pontificalis (I, p. 227), of which no trace locally remains.
At the beginning of the sixth century, the history of Antium comes to an end: it declined, together with the diocese, and was depopulated by the barbarian invasions, especially the Lombard invasion (Procopius, De bell. got., I, 26). The territory, reduced to a simple massa, was transformed by Pope Zacharias into a domusculta (Lib. Pontif., I, p. 435).
Along the route of the ancient Via Severiana, east of the modern settlement, the ruins of an oratory came to light in 1877. Its paintings were judged to date from the twelfth century; it had been made from a Roman brick-built tomb of the second century A.D.