There are two ways to visit a Roman town. One is to look at it from a raised walkway, as at Ostia or in the imperial fora. The other is to walk inside it, along the road that already ran through it, and that is what you do at Saepinum, in the hamlet of Altilia some twenty kilometres from Campobasso.
Here the urban plan is complete: the walls with their towers, the four gates, the paved forum, the basilica, the theatre, the baths, the cardo and the decumanus. And inside, to this day, a shepherds’ road still runs through it.
Warning: since 1 March 2026 there is nothing to pay, and it is worth knowing why. The free entry is declared temporary and depends on the fact that some areas are closed for works to remove architectural barriers. It is worth the trip anyway, and in this article I set out what you see and what is shut.
The droving road that enters by one gate and leaves by the other
Why does a Roman town have a grassy road down the middle? Because that road is older than asphalt and younger than the town: it is the Pescasseroli-Candela droving road, one of the great transhumance routes that took the flocks from the Abruzzi mountains down to the Tavoliere plain. The route crosses Saepinum: it enters by one gate, runs along the decumanus between the forum, the theatre and the baths, and leaves by the opposite side.
This is no picturesque coincidence. Saepinum was founded under Augustus at a point where the flocks already passed, and the town was built on the transhumance route because that route was an economy. Walking it makes clear something no panel explains well: for the Romans this was not a country lane, it was a commercial artery.
The Porta Bojano inscription, a lawsuit that ended up in stone
And here is the reward, and it is a text. On the southern pillar of Porta Bojano, four metres above the droving road that passes under the gate, is carved the correspondence of a dispute from the second half of the 2nd century, under Marcus Aurelius.
The imperial freedman Cosmus writes to the praetorian prefects Bassaeus Rufus and Macrinius Vindex: the magistrates of Saepinum and Bovianum are harassing the contractors of the imperial flocks passing through on the transhumance, seizing sheep, detaining shepherds as though they were runaways. The prefects reply by reprimanding the magistrates of the two towns.
Stop for a moment on what that means. It is the most explicit document we have on a quarrel between transhumant shepherds and the magistrates who policed them, and the side that was in the wrong had it carved on its own town gate, where everyone who entered read it. This was not a celebratory inscription: it was a judgment on display. Anyone arriving at Saepinum looking for statues finds this instead, and it is rarer than a statue.
Porta Bojano, the two prisoners and the builders
The gate deserves looking at for its own sake too. It carries the inscriptions of its builders, Tiberius and Drusus, which stood on all four gates and survive complete only here; and on either side of the archway are the reliefs of two Germanic prisoners, half naked and in chains, telling whoever enters who won and who lost.
This is the standard language of imperial architecture, and at Saepinum it works better than elsewhere for a reason of scale: there is no rhetoric of Rome here, there is a small town on an internal frontier using the same vocabulary. The same forms, in the provinces, with the droving road running underneath.
The forum, the basilica and the house that grew on top of it
Why is the forum of a small town so large? Because it was not scaled to the residents but to the traffic: the flocks came through here and so did the people who bought them, and the square had to hold a fair as well as a town council. The forum is what stays with you as you arrive: a paved rectangle with grass growing in the joints, the basilica on one side and its columns re-erected. From here you read the whole plan, because it stands at the crossing of cardo and decumanus and the four directions start there.
And then there is the thing that makes Saepinum different from a fenced site: the village grew on top of it. The stone houses of Altilia lean against and sit on the Roman structures, and in places an ancient wall is the ground floor of a modern building. That is not decay: it is the reason the site reached us at all. A town abandoned completely becomes a quarry; a town where somebody kept living keeps its walls because it uses them.
The theatre, the baths and the walls with their towers
The theatre stands on the northern side, leaning against the walls, and its cavea is partly occupied by houses: the curve of the outer wall can be followed by eye even from outside. The baths lie along the decumanus and keep their heated rooms.
The walls are the complete circuit, with circular towers and four gates: Porta Bojano to the north-west, Porta Benevento to the south-east on the line of the decumanus, Porta Tammaro and Porta Terravecchia on the cardo. Since 2026 there is also an outside route along the walls, between Porta Terravecchia and Porta Bojano, with panels: you walk outside the town and look at it the way anyone arriving used to.
What is closed, and why it is right to say so
This is the part the brochures do not write. Saepinum is partly a building site: the works are meant to make the archaeological area and the exhibition spaces accessible, and it is precisely for that reason that some areas are closed and admission has been made free.
Warning: the entrance has changed. Since 28 May 2026 the gate and ticket office at Porta Tammaro, on the side of the SS87 road, have been closed: you enter from the Porta Terravecchia car park. An older notice giving Porta Terravecchia as closed is still going round, and it is out of date: following it means giving up the only entrance that is open.
The comparison I have in mind sits at the other end of Italy. In Cagliari the Roman amphitheatre has been closed to visitors since 2011 and the city council’s page went on publishing opening times and prices for years as though it were open. Here instead the operator declares the works, declares the closed areas and stops charging. As a reader I much prefer the second attitude.
Practical information
Details checked on 8 September 2026 on the site of the Sepino Archaeological Park and on the ministry of culture page. Prices and opening times change: check again before you travel.
Tickets. Admission has been free since 1 March 2026, because of the closure of some areas due to the works. Before that date the combined ticket with the City and Territory Museum cost 10 euros, with the reduced rate at 2 euros for the 18-25 band.
Warning: one divergence between two official sources. The ministry page, last updated on 3 March 2026, still gives the combined ticket at 10 euros; the park’s own site announces free entry from 1 March. The two cannot be reconciled, and the difference decides what you will pay: before you travel, telephone the ticket office on 0874 790207.
Opening times. Open every day, 8:15-19:15, with last entry thirty minutes before closing. Booking is welcome but not required.
Free admission. Today entry is free for everyone. When the charge returns, the rules for state museums apply: free under 18, reduced for the 18-25 band.
Getting there. The park is in the hamlet of Altilia in the municipality of Sepino, some twenty kilometres south of Campobasso, and no train serves it: you need a car. You enter from the Porta Terravecchia car park. For accessibility it is best to call ahead on 0874 790207 or write to pa-sepino-mu-cb@cultura.gov.it, because the building site changes the routes.
How long it takes. Two hours for the town inside the walls, three if you add the outside route along the walls and the museum. It is the only stop in Molise that opens every day, so it is the one that saves a Monday.
The rest of Molise
Saepinum is the town Rome built on the path of the flocks; the sanctuary where the Samnites gathered before Rome arrived lies half an hour of bends away, and I tell that story in Pietrabbondante. The two-day itinerary, with the calendar that decides what you get to see, is in what to see in Molise. The other pieces are Larino with the amphitheatre, San Pardo and the mosaics, Termoli cathedral and Campobasso with the Monforte Castle and the archaeological museum.
If Roman towns you walk rather than look at appeal to you, the closest comparison is Aosta, where the circuit with its towers is still the perimeter of the inhabited centre.
Photo credits: forum, inscription and village by Accurimbono (CC BY-SA 4.0). All from Wikimedia Commons.
