In the upper part of the city under Piazza Matteotti, where the morphological conformation of the land was more favourable, a large rectangular room was dug out of the limestone rock for collecting rainwater for drinking use: the Roman cistern.

This room, about 60 meters long, 19 wide and 5.70 high, then divided into ten parallel and communicating rooms, was built in opus incertum and covered with barrel vaults in opus cementitious; the floor and part of the walls were covered in hydraulic mortar which made them perfectly waterproof thus avoiding the dispersion of water through the ground.

The cistern complex is one of the best examples of the Romanization process of the small Umbrian town. The structure combined the function of water reservoir with that of substructure for the area above where it was thus possible to create the main square of the Roman city.

The Forum, probably constructed in the 1st century B.C., was the political and social heart of ancient Ameria.

Back then, Amelia became a Roman municipality and the cistern remained in use until the modern age.

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