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Etruscan and Roman Roads in Southern Etruria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

J. B. Ward Perkins
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Extract

The main roads that led north from Rome into Etruria have received surprisingly little attention from students of classical topography. With the exception of the Via Flaminia, which has been the subject of a characteristically detailed study by Ashby and Fell, the course of none of these roads has been systematically worked out on the ground. Martinori's monograph on the Via Cassia (and Clodia) is little more than a compilation of facts about the places along its presumed route; and Lopes Pegna's recent articles, though a useful contribution, are concerned rather with the problems raised by the study of the Classical itineraries than with their topographical implications. And yet for two millennia these roads have played a major, often a determining, part in the history of the regions through which they pass They have become a part of the essential pattern of life, and it is perhaps for that very reason that they have so often been taken for granted.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1-2 , November 1957 , pp. 139 - 143
Copyright
Copyright ©J. B. Ward Perkins 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Ashby, Th. and Fell, R. A. L., JRS XI (1921), 125–190Google Scholar. See also Ashby, in Atti Pont. Ace. Rom. Arch. III, Memorie 1, 2 (1924), 129–175Google Scholar, and in Studi Etruschi III (1929), 171–185Google Scholar, by far the best general survey of the whole problem. Anziani, D., Mélanges Ec. Fr. Rome XXIII (1913), 169–244Google Scholar, contains much useful pioneer work, but hardly touches on this area.

2 Martinori, E., Via Cassia (Rome, 1930)Google Scholar; for the territories immediately north of Rome, based almost exclusively on Tomasetti, Fr., La Campagna Romana III (1913Google Scholar).

3 Studi Etruschi XXII (1952), 381–410Google Scholar.

4 Preliminary reports in PBSR XXIII (1955), 44–72Google Scholar, and XXV (1957) forthcoming; see also AJA LX 1956), 394Google Scholar; Ill. London News 11th May, 1957, 774–5.

5 For inscriptions of curatores of this group of roads, Martinori, o.c. 172.

6 R. Bianchi Bandinelli, Not. Scav. 1925, 36–40.

7 So Lopes Pegna, o.c. 403. For the pons Mulvius, Ballance, M. H., PBSR XIX (1951), 79–84Google Scholar.

8 For the priority of the Via Triumphalis, see Ashby, Studi Etruschi, art. cit. 176.

9 PBSR XXIII (1955), 58–69Google Scholar.

10 cf. Livy VI, 9, 4: ‘cum ea loca (sc. Nepete ac Sutrium) opposita Etruria et velut claustra inde portaeque essent.’

11 In pl 1, 4, this road from Veii is represented by the dark streak entering at the bottom right-hand corner, the corresponding section of the Via Cassia by a similar dark streak to the left of it, now almost obliterated by the modern road. The onward line appears to continue that of the road from Veii, swinging more widely than the modern road round the head of a short tributary gully of the Fosso di Formello; throughout this stretch the modern road is characteristically more direct.

12 Including a large Villanovan cemetery and a conspicuous tumulus, probably of the seventh century B.C.

13 PBSR XXIII (1955), 45–58Google Scholar.

14 ibid. 57.