The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria
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Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol The cities and cemeteries of Etruria Dennis, George 1883 Chapter IX Fescennium urn:nbn:at:at-ubi:2-12107 CoRCHIANU, AN ETRUSCAN SITE. CHAPTER IX. FESCENNIUM. Festadicax fundat convicia Feseenninus .— Seneca. Hem ! nos homunculi indignamur , si quis nostrum interiit aut occisus est quorum vita brevior esse debet , cum uno loco tot oppidum cadavera projecta jaceant ? Serv . Sul pit . , Epist . ad M . Tull . Cicer. The second town of the Falisci , Fescennium , or Fescennia , or Fascenium, as Dionysius calls it, was founded, like Falerii, by the Siculi, who were driven out by the Pelasgi ; traces of which latter race were still extant in Dionysius’ day, in the warlike tactics, the Argolic shields and spears, the religious rites and ceremonies, and in the construction and furniture of the temples of the Falisci.1 This Argive or Pelasgic origin of Fescennium, as well as of Falerii, is confirmed by Solinus.2 Virgil mentions 1 Dion . Hal . I . pp. 16, 17. and calls it a town of Campania (ad .Tin. 3 Solin . II . p. 13 . Servius , however, VII . 695 ). ascribes to Fescennium an Athenian origin, I 2 116 FESCENNIUM, [CHAP . IX. 4 Fescennium as sending her hosts to the assistance of Turnus ; 3 hut no notice of it, which can be regarded as historical , has come down to us ; and it is probable that, as a Faliscan town, it followed the fortunes and fate of Falerii . It was a Roman colony in ' the time of Pliny. 4, We know only this in addition, that here are said to have originated the songs , which from an early period were in use among the Romans at their nuptials ; 5 and which were sung also by the peasantry in alternate extempore verses, full of banter and raillery.6 To the precise site of Fescennium we have no clue, though, from its connection with Falerii , and the mention made of it by Virgil, we may safely conclude it was *in the district between Soracte and the Ciminian mount, i . e. in the ager Faliscus. Muller ’s opinion, that it occupied the site of Civita Castellana, has been shown to be incorrect. The assumption of Cluver, that it is represented by Gallese , a village about nine miles to the north of Civita Castellana, seems wholly gratuitous ; he is followed, however, in this by subsequent writers —magni nominis umbraJ The truth is, that there are numerous Etruscan sites in this district, none of which, save Gallese , have been recognised as such, so that, in the absence of definite description by the ancients , and of all monumentary evidence on the several localities , it is im- 3 Virg. 2En. loc. cit. of Cortona, Caere, Alsium, Pyrgi, all which 4 Plin. III . 8. cities had a Pelasgic origin. 6 Servius , loc. cit. Festus voce Fescennini 6 Livy(VII. 2) calls them — versum versus. Plin. XV. 24. Catul. LXI. 126. incompositum temere ac rudem. Catullus Seneca, Medea, 113. Clandian gives a (loc. cit.)—procax Fescennina locutio. So specimen of Fescennina, on the nuptials of also Seneca (loc. cit.). Fescennine seems Honorins and Maria. Festus offersa deri¬ to have been a proverbial synonym for vation—quia fascinum putabantur arcere “ playing the fool,” Macrob. Saturn . II. —which Muller (Etrusk . IV. 5. 2. n. 8.) 10. In their original character these thinks is not satisfactory. Dr. Schmitz, Fescennines, though coarse and bold, were in Smith’s Dictionaryof Antiquities, objects not malicious ; but in time, says Horace, to the Fescennian origin of these songs, on the freedom of amiable sport grew to the ground that “ this kind of amusement malignant rage, and gave rise to dissen¬ has at all times been, and is still, so popular sions and feuds ; whereon the law stept in, in Italy, that it can scarcely be considered and put an end to them altogether. ' Epist. as peculiar to any particular place.” He 11. I. 145. Augustus himself wrote Fes¬ further maintains that these songs cannot cennines on Pollio, who would not respond, be of Etruscan origin, because Fescennium save with a witty excuse—non est facile in was not an Etruscan, but a Faliscan town. eum scribere, qui potest proscribere.— But whatever may have been the origin of Macrob. gatur . IL 4. the Falisci, ages before we find mention of 7 Cluv. Ital . Antiq. II . p. 551. Nib by, the Fescennineverses, they had been incor¬ II . p. 28. Cramer, I. p. 226. Abeken’s porated with the Etruscan Confederation, Mittelital . p. 36. Westphal, Map of the and were as much Etruscans as the citizens Campagna. chap , ix .] BEAUTY OF THE AGEE FALISCUS. 117 possible to pronounce with certainty which is the site of Fescennium. This district lying between the Ciminian on the west, Soracte on the east, the Tiber on the north, and the modern Via Cassia on the south, with the exception of the road which passes through Nepi and Civita Castellana to Ponte Felice, is to travellers in general, and to antiquaries in particular, a terra incognita. This tract of country, though level, is of exceeding beauty—not the stern, barren grandeur of the Campagna around Home—but beauty, soft, rich, and luxuriant. Plains covered with oaks and chestnuts—grand gnarled giants, who have lorded it here for centuries over the lowly hawthorn, nut, or fern—such sunny glades, carpeted with green sward !—such bright stretches of corn, waving away even under the trees !—such “ quaint mazes in the wanton groves ! ”—and such delicious shady dells, and avenues, and knolls, where Nature, in her springtide frolics, mocks Art or Titania, and girds every tree, every bush, with a fairy belt of crocuses, anemones, purple and white cistuses, delicate cyclamens, convolvuluses of different hues, and more varieties of laughing flowers than I would care to enumerate. A merrier greenwood you cannot see in all merry England ; it may want the buck to make it perfect to the stalker’s taste; but its beauty, its joyousness, must fill every other eye with delight— “ It is , I ween , a lovely spot of ground, And in a season atween June and May Half prankt with spring , with summer half embrowned . Is nought around but images of rest, Sleep -soothing groves , and quiet lawns between, And flowery beds that slumb ’rous influence kest From poppies breathed , and beds of pleasant green .” Ever and anon the vine and the olive come in to enrich, and a flock of goats or of long-horned cattle8 to animate the landscape, which is hedged in by the dark, forest-clad Ciminian, the naked, craggy, sparkling Soracte, and the ever-fresh and glorious range of Apennines, gemmed with many a town, and chequered with shifting shadows. All this is seen on the plain ; but go northwards towards the 8 The waters or the pastures of this hut the local breed is now of the grey hue district , the “ ager Faliscus, ” were sup- common in the Campagna. This district posed by the ancients to have the property was anciently fertile in flax (Sil . Ital . IV. of turning cattle white (Plin . Kat. His . II . 223 ). There is little enough, either of 106 . Ovid. Amor. III . Eleg . 13, v. 13), produce or manufacture , at present. 118 FESCENNIUM. [chap . IX. Tiber, and you find that you are far from being on low ground ; the river flows five hundred feet beneath you, through a valley which in fertile beauty has few rivals, even in Italy . Or attempt to approach some one of the towns whose spires you see peering above the woods of the plain ; and many a ravine, darkly profound, unseen, unthought of till you stand on its brink, yawns at your feet, and must be traversed to its uttermost recesses ere you attain your object. In these lower regions you are amid scenes widely different from those on the upper level. Your horizon is bounded by walls of rock, but what it wants in distance it gains in intrinsic beauty. The cliffs, broken into fantastic forms, and hollowed into caves of mysterious interest, display the richest hues of brown, red, orange, and grey; wood hangs from their every ledge, and even crests their brows—a wood as varied in mass as in tint—ilex, ash, alder, oak, chestnut —matted together with ivy, vines, clematis, and honeysuckle; a stream winds brawling through the hollow, here spanned by a rustic bridge, there sinking in a mimic cascade; now struggling among the fallen, moss-grown crags, now running riot through some lowly mill, half hid by foliage. A white shrine or hermit¬ age looks down from the verge of the cliff, or a bolder-featured town, picturesque with the ruin of ages, towers above you on an insulated mass at the forking of the glen; so lofty, so inaccessible is the site, you cannot believe it the very same town you had seen for miles before you, lying in the bosom of the plain. Such are the general outlines of the scenery; but every site has its peculiar features, which I shall only notice in so far as the)1, have antiquarian interest. About six miles northwards from Civita Castellana lies Corchiano, now a wretched village of five or six hundred souls, ruined by the French at the beginning of the century, and never rebuilt. There is nothing of antiquity within the avails, but the site is clearly Etruscan. No walls of that origin are extant, but the ravines around contain numerous sepulchres, now defaced by appropriation to other purposes. Traces of Etruscan roads, too, are abundant. On the way to Gallese, to Ponte Felice, and to Civita Castellana, you pass through deep clefts, sunk in the rock in ancient times ; and in the more immediate neighbourhood of the village are roads cut in the rock, and flanked by sepulchres, or built up on either hand with large blocks of tufo, which have every appearance of remote antiquity.