Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections ORVIETO AND THE WATERWAYS NETWORK Claudio Bizzarri Fondazione per il Museo C. Faina ABSTRACT In antiquity “road networks” of various kinds played an essential role in defining the territory and determining where settlements and production villas and farms were to be located. This study deals in particular with the waterways in Umbria, involving rivers such as the Tiber, the Paglia and the Chiani, which were all navigable at the time, and how present place names provide an insight into how these waterways were exploited. Corroborated by archaeological finds, descriptions from ancient authors also provide a lively picture of what these villas were like. PREFACE 1 the use of a haulage system, where a system of locks 5 Two distinct methods of analysis can be used in an attempt permitted the exploitation of rivers with a minimum to understand the phenomenon connected to the creation discharge. In Roman times precise laws regulated river and exploitation of a communication and transportation traffic insofar as the flumen (a waterway with a permanent network: physical and chronological. The current flow as distinguished from the rivus and which existed connotation of the term “road network” refers to a even in exceptional periods of drought) vitally enabled complex system dependent in turn on the manner in free circulation. Drawing water from the river was which it is exploited (by rail, wheels, etc.). It might prohibited so as not to interfere with navigation and the therefore be more correct to think of an ancient system as banks were also safeguarded, making access availble to a network of connectivity, that changes, is updated, all. 6 “breathes,” in line with the historical events connected to Merchandise was transported from the maritime to the the territory in question. The analysis 2 of these networks river ports of Rome on the caudicariae or naves cadicariae , as presented here will deal first of all with the large river barges. 7 Depending on their size, they had no “waterways,” subsequently to be followed by a study of sails, and were drawn by men pulling ropes (the helciarii the “land” network. The sciences that deal with the cited in the classic sources 8) or by oxen, which moved processes involved in the humanization of a territory— along the riverbanks 9. This system, known as alaggio , or and not that alone—can hardly be considered exact since towing, was in use up to the end of the 19th century. The it is after all the human element that furnishes the greatest term alzaia, or also alzan, has a twofold semantic value. It number of variables. They are sometimes hard to identify is the rope that serves to pull vessels upstream along the and understand, difficult to classify, or even to subdivide canals. It is the road along the banks or along the river for into categories. the transit of the animals and men who were towing the Any discussion of communication networks must vessels. Alzaia is derived from the Late Latin helciaria (he obviously include the waterways. The presence of water who pulls the rope), from helcium (yoke) and this from the was generally one of the requisites for a human settlement, Greek meaning “to pull.“ a determining element in the land routes as ineluctable In the Venetian territory the term restara also had geographic boundaries, along which salt, 3 one of the most multiple meanings: rope, road, station for changing important products for antiquity and the Middle Ages, animals, horses or oxen, and tolls (the right of restara , a real moved. ius of Roman law). 10 Restara is also derived from the Latin: restis , rope, cord. Restiarius is therefore the rope maker THE WATERWAYS (funaio ). In a broader sense in addition to tow road for the The area in question in this study includes the Tiber, boats the term was also applied to the rope itself. Therefore Paglia, and Chiani 4 rivers, to name only the most restarolus is he who hauls the boats and the resta is the linen important. They were all navigable in antiquity, including tow, the hemp for the ships, also referred to the braid of Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections | http://jaei.library.arizona.edu |vol. 10 (September 2016) | 11 –24 Bizzarri | Orvieto and the Waterways Network vegetable fibers (the resta or “rope, string” of garlic or of Barca Vecchia, 20 or Old Boat, evidently connected to the onions). The place name “funara” is also significant, local geomorphological conditions near the two banks and appearing for example in reference to a road near the Nera their use even relatively recently. The road of 108 CE in River in correspondence to the bridge of Augustus, in line with the river followed the orientation of the side Narni, that could have had the same meaning or indicate roads of the Cassia, which deviated slightly in the the craft activity connected with the production of ropes. direction of Orvieto and crossed the river in loc. An analysis of the 1363 cadaster 11 of Civitello d’Agliano Colonnacce 21 before heading towards Ficulle. The so-called provides us with a good idea of the importance of Ponte Giulio, 22 currently far from the course of the river transportation via river in the Middle Ages. Cited are the due to the migration of the Paglia riverbed, 23 must have sandali (sandals), flat-bottomed vessels “suitable for sliding served the same function. over stretches of rapids; in case of riverbeds that are muddy or covered with brush, they easily move without ThE TERRITORy OF ChIUSI lies to the northwest, remaining entangled.” 12 In 1500, in the stretch Baschi-Orte - communicating with the district of Volsini via the Clanis , –Rome, the types of vessels with characteristics suitable currently a rather modest river, but which, like the Paglia, 24 for river navigation and of various sizes included sandali, was navigable in antiquity. The boundary between the navicelli, ciarmotte, ciarmottelle, barchette, bastardelle, chiode. areas belonging to the two poleis can be identified thanks The navicello for example was up to 21 meters long and 5 to the trajectory of the previously mentioned Via Traiana wide, with one or two masts and a hold, the barchettone 15 Nova. This more recent road led a Volsinis ad fines by 4 meters, the chioda a sort of floating raft. 13 Clusinorum .25 On the basis of the miles given in the miliario The river routes in the territory in question serve as a of Monte Regole, the boundaries can be placed in useful compendium for the subsequent correct correspondence to the site of the Colonnacce, 26 in the identification of the land routes. municipality of Ficulle. This interruption was probably The Tiber is obviously the most important river and due to the presence of stagnant water that led to the receives water from the Paglia, which in turn received formation of wetlands in the lower Valdichiana. In the water from the Chiani and subsequently that of the Nera, Middle Ages the area was still characterized by these as well as a series of minor streams that run through the stagnant waters which was probably why the cultivated territory and are often the inroads into the countryside. A fields were abandoned in Roman times, even though an series of archaeological elements that determine the environment of this sort generated an economy connected parameters for an understanding of the importance, above to water 27 (fishing, canes, hemp). The riverbed of the all in antiquity, of these courses can be identified from Chiani has changed and the river had a more abundant north to south. The Tiber is the boundary for the Etruscan flow. This can be conjectured by the presence of a bridge territories, those on the right bank of the river: ripa and a sort of containing weir in concrete, significantly veientana and then the polis of Veio 14 or litus Etruscorum .15 called “Murogrosso,” near Fabro Scalo, 28 where the water The Italic populations on the left bank appertain to a begins its winding torrential route from the Valdichiana Faliscan and/or Umbrian ambience. towards Volsinii. The concern expressed by the Roman Senate in 15 CE with regards to the floods of the Tiber, and IN ThE TERRITORy OF ORVIETO , the river Paglia runs along the need to regularize the flow of its affluents, is shown in the valley floor below the butte. Now of a torrential nature, references to such constructions. Five containment in antiquity it bore the interesting hydronym Tinia .16 structures in opus poligonalis on ditches leading into the Coming from Monte Amiata, it cuts transversally through Tiber 29 have been documented in the administrative areas the territory, creating the Paglia valley, which, broadly of Guardea and Lugnano in Teverina, south of Orvieto. A speaking, separates the volcanic plateau of the Alfina from long series of reconstructions are mentioned in Bianchi– the hills at the foot of the massif of Monte Peglia. Towards Boscherini–Fuschiotto, where various archive sources the source, in the west, are the territories currently part of including that of the War of Castro are cited. With regards the administrative areas of Lazio and Tuscany, with to this war, in 1643 “the wall was destroyed...” on the Acquapendente at the center, and those gravitating occasion of the hostilities in the Barberina war. In the third around the upper valley of the Fiora. Limited interest in part of his histories, Count Gualdo Priorato tells us that these western territories together with the meandering Colonel Adami from Pistoia was sent to tear down the wall nature of the course of the Paglia do not seem to have been of the Chiane built (what the basis for this statement was conducive to making much use of this stretch of the is not given) in Carthaginean times.