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HISTORY: In the land of the Falisci
We are publishing this article in memory of Norman Roberson who died in Rome in May. He contributed knowledgable articles about Etruria and the Etruscans for Wanted in Rome in the 1990s.
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The head of an unknown deity is still visible on the keystone of Falerii Novi's Pora di Giove. |
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The school master went nuts. A new year had come and his city, Falerii, was still under siege with no end in sight. The other cities in the Etruscan federation had failed to heed the calls for help; perhaps they were convinced that Falerii, on cliffs 100 m above the river valley and with its strong walls protecting the only part accessible to the plain, was perfectly impregnable. It was the year 395 BC.
He hit on what he thought was a brilliant idea, a way to stop the siege and the war without having to argue with the old fuddy-duddies on the city council who insisted on holding out against the Romans. One balmy morning he had his boys bring a picnic lunch and took them on a field trip in the countryside. Further and further away from the city walls they went until they “accidentally” found themselves in the camp of the Roman general in charge of the forces besieging the city. His name was Furio Camillo, a prime example of a rigid and strict Roman of the republican era.
When the Roman general understood the treachery the school master was proposing, that the boys should be held as hostages, he lived up to his name. Enraged, he armed the boys with rods and scourges and had the school master stripped and hand-bound. The boys then flogged him all the way back to Falerii. The citizens were so overwhelmed by this act of Roman propriety and generosity that they immediately opened the gates and surrendered. This story is told by Livy as an example of the morally upright character of the Romans during the time of the Republic.
Other historians inform us that after this famous incident, the Etruscan city revolted again several times and eventually in 241 BC failed for the last time. The inhabitants were then forced to relocate their city to a site of easier access to a besieging army, a place unlike the older Falerii which had given the Romans so much trouble in the past.
They were moved about six kilometres up the Miccino river. The wall towers and gates of the new city were constructed in such a manner as to allow an attacking force to shield itself from the defender’s missiles. The town was named (naturally) Falerii Novi. The old town, Falerii Veteres, was abandoned and fell into ruin. Only a few inhabitants remained there to tend the temple of Juno which attracted pilgrims from far and wide.
Falerii Novi continued to be a thriving city throughout the days of the Roman Empire but during the Middle Ages its less defensible position on a flat plain rendered the city vulnerable to attack by the Goth and Saracen raiders. Gradually the citizens went back to Falerii Veteres, improved its defences and renamed it Civita Castellana, the city of the castle.
Today Falerii Novi stands isolated in the plain between Civita Castellana and Fabrica di Roma. Its walls, five metres high and two metres thick, stretch for more than two kilometres. Particularly notable is the gate called Porta di Giove, which still stands with the head of an unknown entity carved in its keystone. The forum is to be found a few dozen metres west of the central gate in the eastern wall. Traces of the Etruscan road, the Via Amerina, can be seen on its southern side. In the far southwest corner of the city there is another gate, the Porta del Bove, which lies about five metres below ground level and is almost invisible because of the rampant growth of briars and brambles.
Also to be seen within the walls is the huge 12th-century church of S. Maria di Falerii, which was built using architectural elements from the ancient city, and was restored to its original glory in the 1990s.
Falerii Novi and Civita Castellana, together with Nepi, Calcata and Faleria to the south and Corchiano and Gallese to the north, make up that region between the Tiber and the Monti Cimini known as the land of the Faliscians. The ancient Falisci were a nation allied with and considered a part of the Etruscan federation although they spoke a crude Latin dialect ridiculed by the Romans.
During the reign of popes Alexander VI (1492-1503) and Julius II (1503-1513) Civita Castellana was heavily fortified as a strong point on the northern defences of Rome. Its Renaissance castle, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, with an octagonal tower standing 24 m high, is an architectural jewel.
Today this former papal fortress and prison has been converted into a museum. Here in nine large rooms, some of them still with Renaissance frescoes, the archaeological remains of the Faliscians, collected from sites at Narce (near Calcata), Nepi, Tre Ponte (north of Nepi), Civita Castellana and Falerii Novi, are displayed. There is a unique Grecian urn from a tomb near Civita Castellana showing a man armed with a sword and spear attacking a sea monster, which is recoiling to bounce a large rock off the head of its tormentor. Most touchingly there is a bronze cheese grater that today, more than 2,500 years later, could easily grate pecorino and a wine strainer, also of bronze and in pristine condition, which resembles any modern tea strainer.
COTRAL buses leave frequently from Lepanto in Prati for Civita Castellana. After looking around the town and its museum it is an easy hike through rolling countryside on the Via del Terrano to Falerii Novi. An unusal way to return to Rome after your excursion is by flagging down the train for Piazzle Flaminio (Editor’s note: this was true when the article was written in 1996 but may not be true today). Enquire at the bar in the settlement northeast of the ruins for the expected time of the next train.
This article was published in Wanted in Rome on 28 February 1996.
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