The road that led northwards from Veii up the east bank of the Cremera towards the Sorbo crater, left the city about half-way between the North-west Gate and the Ponte Sodo, by a gate which it is convenient to refer to as the Formello Gate (PBSR, xxix, 1961, pp. 19, 20), although the ancient road in fact passed a short distance to the west of the site of Formello and in places became obsolete as soon as the medieval village was founded. For the first 6 km. of its course, up to the crest of the Monti Sabatini, which it crossed a short distance to the north-west of Formello, it followed the watershed between those tributaries of the Cremera that join the main stream above Veii and those (notably the Fosso degli Olmetti and the Fosso di Pantanicci) that join it at or below the North-east Gate. From the crest it dropped down the steep eastern slopes of the Cremera gorge, crossing the river at the point where the whole drainage of the Sorbo crater converges into a single stream, just below the Ponte San Silvestro, whence, following a natural reentrant up on to the open crest of a ridge of higher ground, it climbed to the north-west lip of the crater. This it crossed through a spectacular cutting, and dropped into the Baccano crater, joining the ancient road from Veii to Nepi near Ponte dell'Ellera on the modern Via Cassia. An important branch of this road diverged to the right on the crest of the Monti Sabatini, heading north-eastwards down into and across the Sorbo crater. This is described in the following section (pp. 25–30).