As is well known, several Roman sources report on the existence of a town
foundation ritual, inherited from the Etruscans, which allegedly included
astronomical references. However, the possible existence of astronomical
orientations in the layout of Roman towns has never been tackled in a
systematic way. As a first step in this direction, the orientation of virtually
all Roman towns in Italy (38 cities) is studied here. Non-random orientation
patterns emerge from these data, aiming at further research in this field.Comment: Archaeoastronomy/History of astronomy; 11 pages, 3 figure
