Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol

The cities and cemeteries of

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 , Fescennium , or , or Fascenium, as Dionysius calls it, was founded, like , 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 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 , has been shown to be incorrect. The assumption of Cluver, that it is represented by , 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, , Alsium, , 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 , that it can scarcely be considered and put an end to them altogether. ' Epist. as peculiar to any particular place.” He 11. I. 145. 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 on the north, and the modern on the south, with the exception of the road which passes through 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. The tombs have no remarkable features—being mostly square chambers, with benches ■CHAP . IX .] CORCHIANO, AN ETRUSCAN SITE 119

■of rock around, and sometimes with a pillar or partition-wall in the centre. There are some columbaria as at Fallen , and not a few of those singular conical tombs, sunk in the ground, and having an opening above, which abound at Civita Castellana. But the most remarkable monument on this site is about half a mile from Corchiano, on tfie road to Fallen . After crossing the river—the Rio Fratte —you ascend to the level of the plain by a road sunk in the tufo, on the wall of which is carved an Etruscan inscription, in letters fifteen inches in height, with an intaglio of at least three inches—

or Lahth . Vel . Arnies . On the rock just beyond there has been another inscription, but one letter only is now traceable. There is no appearance of a toinb, and the rock does not seem to have been hewn into a monumental form, yet the inscription of a proper name, in such a situation (and complete in itself, as the smooth surface testifies), can hardly have been other than sepul¬ chral. Here , at least, is proof positive of the Etruscan antiquity of the road, and a valuable guide by which to judge of other roads. There has been a water-course down one side, and, a little above the inscription, a sewer, just like those beneath the walls of , opens on the road, bringing the water from the ground above into the course; and again, some distance below the inscribed rock, another similar sewer opens in the tufo, and carries the water through the cliff, clear of the road, down to the river. Both sewers have evidently been formed for no other purpose; and have every appearance of being coeval with the road. This, which ran here in Etruscan times, must be the same as that afterwards called by the Romans Via Amerina ; it led northward from Nepi, through Fallen , to the Tiber near . Corchiano, the ancient name of which is utterly lost,9 was also on the road, perhaps a mutatio.

9 Among the sepulchral incriptions of tion said by Buonarroti to be cut on some Chiusi , we find the proper name of rocks in the mountains near Florence (p. ■“ Carcu 1' “ Carca ” “ Carcna,” and 95, ap. Dempst . II .). The name Carconia *‘ Carcuni, ’’ which in Latin would he in Faliscan letters occurs in one of the ■Carconia. Mus. Chius. II . p. 218. sepulchral inscriptions found in 1851 near Lanzi, II . pp. 348 , 409 , 432 , 455 . The Sta . Maria di F411eri. Ann . Inst . 1860, name of “ Curcli, ” which bears a strong tav . G. affinity to Corchiano, occurs in an inscrip¬ 120 FESCENNIUM. LCHAP . IX.

There is considerable interest around Corchiano, and the anti¬ quary or artist , who would explore the neighbourhood, would do- well to make it his head-quarters, as it is centrally convenient, and accommodation might formerly be had in the house of the butcher of the place, Giuseppe Lionidi. The persons who entertain strangers at these out-of-the-way places are often, butchers, and generally well to do in the world, that is, as well-doing is esteemed in Itaty . At such places the traveller cannot look for comfort, but he will generally meet with great attention from the whole household. About two miles from Corchiano on the road to Bassanello, at a spot called Puntone del Ponte, is a singular tomb, with a sort of court in front sunk in the rock,1 and with the remains of a portico, of which but one square pillar is now standing. On the inner wall of the portico, high under the cornice, is an Etruscan, inscription, which is imperfect, but seems to state the age of the defunct. In its general style this sepulchre resembles the triple- arched tomb at Fallen . It now serves as a pig-sty ; therefore beware of fleas—swarming as in Egyptian plagues—beclouding light nether garments! Seven miles north of Corchiano, on the road to Orte, is Bassanello, perhaps an Etruscan site. There is nothing of interest here ; but half-way between it and Corchiano, is a deserted town called Aleano or Liano, alias Sta. Bruna, from a ruined church on the site. The walls and other ruins, so far as I could see, are mediaeval, and highly picturesque ; but there are tombs of more ancient date in the cliffs beneath the walls, and in the neighbourhood. In many parts of this road you trace the Yia Amerina, by the line of basaltic blocks, running almost due N. and S., and in one part, near the Puntone del Ponte, you tread the ancient pavement for some distance. Three miles from Corchiano and nine from Civita Castellana, lies Gallese, the town which has been supposed to occupy the site of Fescennium. It stands, as usual, on a mass of rock at the junction of two ravines. It has evidently been an Etruscan site, and though no walls of that construction are extant, there are several sewers in the cliffs beneath the town, and plenty of tombs in the rocks around. Within the town are a few Roman remains, fragments of columns, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs, but nothing

1 This court in front of the portico Macrob. Sat. TI . 8) as a vacant space must represent the vestibule described by before the door of the house, through Csecilius Gallus (ap. A. Gell. XVI . 5 ; which lay the approach to it. CHAP. IX.] GALLESE—YIGNANELLO—SOKIANO. 121 which, throws light on the ancient name of the place. This, however, has been determined by a worthy canonico of Gallese, now deceased, to be the ^Squum Faliscum, mentioned by Strabo, Virgil, and Italicus , and he wrote a work thereon, still in manu¬ script, entitled, “ La Antica Falisca, o sia notizie istoriche della citta di Gallese, dal Canonico Teologo Amanzio Nardoni.” His is not a new idea, for on the front of the Palazzo Comunale or Town-hall is inscribed—

Shscula duh vivent mm atut vita Phaliscis. The derivation of Gallese from Halesus, or Haliscus, the son of Agamemnon, and reputed founder of the Faliscan race, is plausible enough ; but another less venerable origin has been sought for the name by the townspeople, who have assumed for the arms of the town a cock—Gallese a gallo. iEquum Faliscum seems, from Strabo, to have been on the Flaminian Way, but Gallese lies about midway between that and the Via Amerina, two or three miles from each. The town is circumscribed by nature, and can never have been of importance—scarcely large enough to be the ancient Fescennium. Gallese is very accessible by railway from Borne, from which it is 74 chilombtres distant, and three miles from the station bearing its own name. Six miles north-west of Corchiano lies , also an Etruscan site, but with no remains of interest . It is a mean and dirty town with a villanous osteria, yet of such importance that a vehicle, miscalled diligence, runs thither from Borne twice a week. Four miles beyond is Soriano, another ancient site, possibly the Surrina Vetus whose existence may be inferred from the “ Sur- rina Nova ” which occupied the site of . It is boldly situated oil the lower slope of the dark Ciminian, lorded over by its venerable castle ; and retains many a picturesque trace of the earthquake ■which shattered it in the last century. I had the fortune to discover the site of an ancient city in this district , which seems to me to be more probably that of Fescen¬ nium than any one of those yet mentioned. It lies about a mile and a half west of Ponte Felice, on the way thence to Corchiano, and the site is indicated by a long line of walling, an embankment to the cliffs on one side of a ravine. From the character of the ground the city must have been of great size, for it is not the usual narrow ridge between two ravines, but a wide area, some miles in circuit, surrounded by ravines of great depth ; more like the site of the ancient Falerii , on the heights of Civita Castel- 122 EESCENNIUM. [CHAP . IX. lana, than of any other town in this neighbourhood. The area ■of the city is covered wutli dense wood, which greatly impedes research ; on it stands the ruined church of San Silvestro, vrhich gives its name to the spot. The wall is the facing to a sort of natural bastion in the cliff, considerably below the level of the ■city. It is so conspicuous that I am surprised to find no men¬ tion of it in any work on the Campagna, not even in AVestphal or Nibby. Forcing a way through pathless thickets, I climbed to the wall and found it to extend in an unbroken mass for 150 or 200 feet.2 In the size and arrangement of its blocks it is more like the frag¬ ments at Tarquinii and Caere, than any other remains I can recollect in Etruria . The whole is much ruined in surface, and bears the appearance of very high antiquity. It has evidently been the wall of a city, for no mere castle would have had a bastion such as this, nor would it have occupied such a site, on a ledge of the cliff, completely commanded by higher ground ; and though in the style of its masonry it differs somewhat from the general type, yet in its position, as a revetement to the cliff, it exactly corresponds with the usual walling of Etruscan cities. That such is its character is corroborated by the existence of numerous tombs, not in the cliffs of the ravines, but, as at Nepi, on the level of the high ground opposite, together with fragments of walling, and sewers wrliick were probably intended to drain this level and keep the tombs dry. The size of this city, so much superior to that of the neigh¬ bouring Etruscan towns, and its vicinity to the which ran just below it to the East on its way to the Tiber and Otricoli, greatly favour the view that here stood Fescennium. Not that that city is knowTn to have been on the Flaminian, but the ancients generally made their roads to accommodate any place of importance that lay in the same direction; 3 and that

2 About eight or ten courses are Borghetto , crossing the Tiber by the bridge standing , formed of tufo blocks , from 18 now in ruins , called Le Pile d’ Augusto; -to 22 inches in height , and square, or but its precise course through this district xearly so (not alternating with long has not been determined . Westphal , Ko¬ blocks as in the usual emplecton), and mis. Kamp. p. 136 . It did not run to the laid often one directly over the other, as original Falerii , because that city had been in the Tullianum prison, and other very destroyed before its formation , and the •early structures. second Falerii was accommodated by the 3 The ancient road departed from the Via Amerina . But Fescennium continued line of the modern Via Flaminia about to exist under the Empire , and therefore Aqua Viva , leaving Civita Castellana two was most probably connected with the City •or three miles to the left , and continued to by a road. CHAP . IX .] PEOBABLE SITE OF FESCENNIUM. 123 Fescennium was of more importance than the many nameless Etruscan towns in this district, it is fair to conclude from the mention of it by Dionysius and Virgil, and from its being coupled with Falerii, one of the cities of the Confederation. If it were certain that iEquum Faliscum was not merely another name for Falerii, it might well have occupied this site, for Strabo seems to indicate it as being on the Flaminian Way, between Otricoli and , which must mean somewhat on the Roman side of the * former place.4 In one of the three Itineraries , indeed, which give the stations on the Flaminian, a town of that name is placed in this neighbourhood; but on the wrong bank of the Tiber. Neither Fescennium nor iEquum Faliscum is mentioned by Ptolemy. If this be the site of Fescennium, as the latest men¬ tion of that town is made by Pliny, it is probable that at an early period of the Empire it fell into decay, and was deserted, like so many other Etruscan towns, and “ the rejoicing city7' became a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in.” Its only inhabit¬ ants are now the feathered tribes, and the only nuptial songs which meet the ear are those of countless nightingales, which in spring-time not only “ smooth the rugged brow of Night,” but even at noonday fill the groves and ravines with tuneful echoes,

“ Stirring - tlie air with , such a harmony ”

as to infuse a spirit of joy and gladness into this lonely and desolate spot.

4 Strabo , it must be observed, does not of the evidently corrupt text also approved speak from his own knowledge , but records of by Miiller (Etrusk . einL IL 14 , n. 101 ). it as a report —oi 5« kiKOvfi