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The Via Cassia and the Via Traiana Nova between Bolsena and Chiusi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

William Harris
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Extract

The Roman road-system between Bolsena and Chiusi is for several reasons one of particular interest. It was detectably influenced by changes in the pattern of settlement; it was the scene of an ambitious engineering project under Trajan; and it covers three different types of country, the tufa hills of Northern Lazio, the clay and limestone ridges to the north of the River Paglia and finally the flood-plain of the upper Val di Chiana.

In the third century B.C. the importance of the Etruscan town on the site of Orvieto sharply declined and Bolsena became the leading town of the area. Orvieto is probably the site of Etruscan Volsinii. This identification, which goes back to K. O. Müller, has been assailed by R. Bloch in a series of articles on the archaeology of Bolsena. It is, however, supported by the evidence of both sites: the finds at Orvieto, notably the rich groups of sixth-century and fifth-century tombs recently excavated by Bizzarri in the Crocefisso del Tufo cemetery, easily outweigh the small quantity of early material which has emerged from the Bolsena site.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 33 , November 1965 , pp. 113 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1965

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References

1 The author owes thanks above all to the Director of the British School, who first suggested this project and gave invaluable help throughout; and also to Dr. M. Bizzarri, the representative of the Soprintendenza alle Antichità at Orvieto, who most generously shared his wide knowledge of the district; Dr D. Adamesteanu of the Fototeca of the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione; Lady Meade, formerly of the British Consulate in Milan, and Ing. D. Vanoni, who enabled the author to see the air photographs of the area taken by the Soc. Autostrade; Miss Joanna Close-Brooks; Miss Iris Love; Miss F. Wachsberger; Mr. T. P. Wiseman; and many others.

2 Die Etrusker i 481, n. 380 (1828). A good bibliography of opinions for and against this identification;s given by Andrén, A., Architectural Terracottas from Etrusco-Italic Temples (Lund-Leipzig, 1940) 153Google Scholar, cf. G. Radke in PW s.v. Volsinii (1961) col. 830f.

3 Notably, in MEFR, lix, 1947, 9–39Google Scholar and lxii, 1950, 57–123.

4 See SE xxx, 1962, 1–156Google Scholar.

5 Although some terracotta work from Orvieto temples postdates the rebellion, Andrén 153 f.

6 For some evidence of Roman use of earlier roads in S. Etruria, cf. Anziani, D., MEFR xxxiii, 1913, esp. 230 fGoogle Scholar. The Cassia was apparently established as an addition to a working system of (less direct) roads; cf. (on the Via Veientana and the Via Nepetina) Ward-Perkins, J. B., PBSR xxiii, 1955, 55–7Google Scholar, xxix, 1961, 60–1, and (on the Etruscan road NW of Sutri) Duncan, G. C., PBSR xxvi, 1958, 83Google Scholar.

7 Liv. xxxix 2.6.

8 Phil. xii 22; ‘Tres viae sunt ad Mutinam … Etruriam discrimiant Cassia.’

9 The case is argued in detail by Wiseman, T. P., PBSR xxxii, 1964, 22 fGoogle Scholar.

10 Livy's silence about the establishment of the Cassia is another argument in favour of a date after 167.

11 For road-building in Italy by a popularis in the 120s, cf. App., BC i 23.98Google Scholar, Plu., CGr 6, 7Google Scholar. In 150 or 123, T. Quinctius Flaminius, father or son, put up a milestone between Florence and Pisa, , CIL xi, 6671Google Scholar = ILS 5808.

12 E.g. by E. Martinori, Via Cassia, 3; cf. Pegna, M. Lopes in SE xxi, 1950–1951, 425–6Google Scholar.

13 cf. CIL xi (= ILS 84), ix 2845–6 (= ILS 915), Suet. DA 30, Dio liii 22.

14 Tac., Ann iii, 31Google Scholar.

15 Dio lix 15.3.

16 For the Ponte di Nicolao, S. near Viterbo, see CIL xi 2999Google Scholar and Bormann's note; cf. Blake, M. E., Roman Construction in Italy from Tiberius through the Flavians (Washington D.C., 1959) 78, 142Google Scholar. For the Colonnacce bridge, see below p. 127.

17 For an account of Trajan's road-building and the three Viae Traianae, cf. Paribeni, R., Optimus Princeps (Messina, 1927) ii, 101–2, 120–8Google Scholar. For other public works of Trajan in Etruria, cf. CIL xi, 3309, 3793 (= ILS 290) etc. North of Chiusi, near Montepulciano, further repairs to the Cassia were carried out by Hadrian, xi, 6668 (= ILS 9497) (A.D. 123). On a chronological point cf. Syme, R., JRS xx, 1930, 56Google Scholar).

18 See below, pp. 123 f.

19 See below, p. 128.

20 The dateable epigraphy from Orvieto in CIL xi grows rapidly in quantity in the early third century.

21 La Via Cassia e la Via Traiana Nova a Volsinis ad Fines Clusinorum (Orvieto, 1925Google Scholar); this was extensively used by Martinori, E., Via Cassia e sue deviazioni (Rome 1930Google Scholar). References to fresh information provided in other local works will be found in their context. Cf. also Pegna, M. Lopes, Itinera Etruria I in SE xxi, 1950–1951, 407–442Google Scholar, G. Radke in PW art. cit., col. 845 f.

22 Two zones of the U.T.M. grid which appears on these maps meet on the western side of the area; the numbering of the two zones is not continuous, so that, for example 444550 and 556550 are only one kilometre apart. The grid numbering is indicated in figs. 2–4.

23 MEFR lix, 1947, 23.

24 Op. cit. 89.

25 Op cit. 8, 21. A. Cozza, cited by Moretti, referred to ‘la testimonianza dei vecchi’ that in order to construct a road from Monte Rubiaglio to Castel Viscardo a ‘via selciata a grandi pietre con crepidine rialzata’ had been destroyed. According to Cozza and Moretti the Cassia itself passed through the villages of Castel Giorgio, Benano, Viceno and Bardano; cf. below p. 129.

26 For some evidence of ancient occupation of this site see Not. Sc. 1884,212.

27 E. Galli, Not. Sc. 1913, 343.

28 Moretti mistakenly gave DACIC for DACICUS.

29 MEFR lxii, 1950, 68Google Scholar.

30 An inscription in the cutting refers to a tradition that it was miraculously provided in 1263 (the year of the Bolsena miracle) to give the pious procession to Orvieto a course which was ‘piú agevole’.

31 G. F. Gamurrini, Not. Sc. 1887, 87.

32 Fiorelli, Not. Sc. 1877, 260.

33 Not. Sc. 1890, 351 ‘tenuto conto della direzione data dalla doppia fila di tombe, si arguisce che una via etrusca solcava l'altipiano del Fattoraccio, da un capo diretta ad Orvieto, dall'altro alle Grotte di Castro’.

34 Quoted in the Bibliografia of the Carta Archeologica (Sheet 130), 34; cf. Mengarelli, R., SE i, 1927, 461Google Scholar.

35 Unless indeed (as is not impossible) the makeshift paving represents the original 4th-century construction, no doubt patched and repaired in later times. The line is a natural one for a connection between Orvieto and the medieval centres of Castel Giorgio and S. Lorenzo; but Mr. D. Waley, the historian of medieval Orvieto, has suggested that it is unlikely that the commune would ever have paved a new line of road.

36 A stretch of 150 m. of paving blocks running east from approximately 549335, south of and parallel to the existing track, is said by some contadini to have been cleared a few years ago.

37 This description was kindly excerpted from Il Cittadino by Dr. Bizzarri.

38 Op. cit. 12–13, followed by Martinori 98–9.

39 Remains of the Cassia in the valley itself are attested by Holstenius, Adnotationes 70, n. to p. 539 line 31 (cf. Ashby, T., JRS xx, 1930, 102 n. 2Google Scholar), but he may be referring to a point further north than Chiusi.

40 As Hadrian, 's repairs were ‘a Clusinorum finibus Florentiam’, CIL xi, 6668Google Scholar.

41 Cf. R. Bianchi Bandinelli, Not. Sc. 1925, 38–9. That the fines Clusinorum extended as far south as the site La Volpara on the eastern side of the Chiana (588521) is probably shown by CIL xi, 2252 = CIE 1646. See note on the site (588521).

42 Cf. Fossombroni, V., Memorie idraulico-storiche sopra la Val di Chiana (Florence 1789Google Scholar; another edition, Montepulciano, 1835, later reprinted elsewhere); A. Manetti, Carte idrauliche dello stato antico e moderno della Val di Chiana; memoria sulla stabile sistemazione della Val di Chiana (1840–9); Nissen, H., Italische Landeskunde (Berlin, 1883) i, 299 f.Google Scholar; etc.

43 Tac., Ann i, 79Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Dante, , Inferno xxix, 46 fGoogle Scholar.

45 First in 1341 on the Part of the Commune of Arezzo. The Canale Maestro della Chiana was designed by A. Ricasoli in the sixteenth century.

46 As sample borings near Fabro seem to demontrate; thanks are due to Mr. M. J. Webb for his help on this point.

47 D. Levi, Not. Sc. 1928, 81, cf. Bandinelli, R. Bianchi, MAAL xxx, 1925, col. 243Google Scholar.

48 This site was pointed out by Sig. N. Fucillo, the Fabro carpenter who found the Polvento milestone.