In a unique setting amongst the hills and mountains, between the parks of the Giara and Monte Arci and surrounded by luxuriant forests of oaks, stands a small town with a glorious past. Usellus is a quaint village of less than 800 inhabitants of the upper Marmilla. Its ancestor is Uselis, a town inhabited since the 8th century BC by people who traded with Phoenicians and the Punic populations of Tharros, then the colony Iulia Augusta from the 2nd century BC. It was an episcopal see for a millennium (from the 3rd to the 12th century) and capital of Curatoria in the Giudicato of Arborea. The Roman town controlled the passageways with the Barbaria and a crucial point when heading towards Aquae Napolitanae (Sardara), Forum Traiani (Fordongianus) and Neapolis (in Capo Frasca). The fundamental document attesting to the status of a colony is a bronze tablet of patronage from 158 AD, with the Usellenses being holders of the same rights and duties as citizens of Urbe. The geographer Tolomeo mentions Uselis as one of the only two Sardinian civium romanorum colonies (the other is Turris Lybissonis). Other Roman remnants are the bridge in the locality of Su Forraxi, a large number of brick tiles and the well-preserved network of roads. On the Roman ruins, on the hill of Donigala, arose the Chiesa di Santa Reparata, with three naves and a façade surmounted by a bell tower. Around the churchyard, the cumbessias have been preserved, being lodgings for the faithful used during novenas and festivals.