The Roman Doctor Will See You Now

It was the Roman equivalent of the Cornwall home of television’s Doc Martin, with its in-house consulting rooms and lovely sea view. For centuries the 2,000-year-old home and surgery, complete with all the tools of the doctor’s trade, lay undiscovered beneath a park, but now the most important relics ever unearthed of the ancient medical world have been unveiled in Rimini on Italy’s Adriatic coast.

Also lying undiscovered for 1,500 years were the house of a fifth-century tycoon with an even more spectacular mosaic floor and a cemetery that archaeologists have dated to the sixth century ad, by which date Christians were burying their dead within the city walls. There are also medieval ruins, although these are less impressive.  

Plainer mosaics decorate the triclinium or dining-room, and the doctor’s anteroom.   There is also evidence of a latrine and a central-heating system serving what was once a two-storey house with  kitchen and pantry upstairs.