More than 15 centuries have gone by since there was life inside the Roman houses on Era Street. Possible the inhabitants were rich, perhaps linked to the salting industry which was so important at that time, maybe hardly aware that their culture and their lifestyle were about to die along with the Roman Empire.
“Ave” is the greeting which the Roman patricians would give on entering their home, the wealthiest, possibly those who oversaw the salting industry. Today there remains only the ruins of the villa on Era Street, but between the 4th and 5th centuries AD it was the home of the richest and most powerful families in the area. Their lifestyle gave them away. The house was not only big – around 300 square metres – it also had a reception room around which were distributed the living rooms, a number of bedrooms, a patio, a kitchen, and next to this a two-metre deep well. That is, a distribution very like the typical in classical Rome. Also of great value are the different materials found, the funerary objects and a large number of coins.
This house belonged to a much bigger urban area, with streets and small alleyways linked to the port area.
To the north, but a short distance from the residential area, there was a late Roman burial necropolis, where there have been located, studied and classified a total of 51 burial sites. The cemetery appears to be somewhat later than the establishment of the houses, although they could have co-existed at some specific point.
Pantheon-type tombs have been found in the necropolis, communal tombs with up to 22 individuals, tombs with stone mortar and lime mortar coverings, and other less ostentatious tombs which were simple graves excavated from the rock.