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Falerii Veteres

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The urban area of Falerii, center of Falisci, occupied an ample tuffaceous land area where today, Civita Castellana is found: bordered by Rio Maggiore to the north, and Rio Filetto to the south. The torrent of Treia runs on the east and on the west we find the sole access protected by an artificial trench near the urban perimeter.
The center still conserves traces of wall dating to the 5th and 4th century B.C., and structures like underground passages, wells and cisterns, excavated in the tufa destined to the provision, conserving and draining of water.
At the end of the 1800's, the Temple of Scasato, made in terracotta, was discovered and calculated to date back to a period at the end of the 4th to the 2nd or 1st century B.C.
At the south west corner of the area, where Civita Castellana rises, the adjoining and isolated high ground of Vignale is found.
On the hill, other tracts of wall, done in a squared process, and two cisterns, as well as some graveyard compounds, are visible. The two cisterns are most likely connected to two structures identified as the Major and Minor Temples, decorated in architectonic terracotta dating back to the end of the 6th century during the Hellenistic epic.
Another two important cult buildings are found in the Valley of Rio Maggiore; in Sassi Cuduti we find the Temple of Mercury and in Celle that id Giunone Curite. The first is dated to be between late 6th up to late 1st century B.C., and the other between the Orientallizante and Hellenistic epics.
The tuffaceous plain that surrounds the highlands of Falerii and Vignale are occupied by a series of necropolises; at the northeast the burial grounds of Montanaro and Celle; to the north of the city, the necropolis of Colonnette composed of chamber tombs done along the incises tufa that leads to the Temple of Giunone Curite whose tombs are dated back to between the 6th and the 3rd centuries B.C.
To the west instead, along the road that leads to Nepi, we found the necropolises of Penna and Valsiarosa, used during the Orientalizzante period between the 4th and 3rd century B.C., but today obliterated by a modern borough.
Beginning with the 4th century B.C., both disagreements and deals followed with the Romans who culminated in 241 B.C. when the city was conquered at the end of an attack which lasted six days. The habitants were forced to abandon the town and rebuild a new city (Falerii Novi) to the west in a flat zone with no natural defences. The primitive center wasn't occupied again until the medieval age.

Falerii Novi

To the left of the modern road that leads from Civita Castellana to Fabrica di Roma, rise the ruins of the antique Falerii Novi, in a flat and open area bordered on the Mediterranean side by a narrow gorge of the Rio Purgatoria.
Some years later, after its founding (241 B.C.), the Gracchus, along with a colony of Roman citizens, were received and the town was transformed into a municipal after the social war of 90-89 B.C. The town was occupied up until the 12th century when the population, for security reasons, went back to the original site of Civita Castellana.
It was during this time that construction of the Roman church of Santa Maria took place and whose ruins rise from inside the circle of the urban walls.
During the Republican Age, the important wall circumference, two kilometers in length, was built.
Built in square tufa blocks and horizontally lined, the walls are two meters thick and around five meters high. They are reinforced by fifty rectangular towers set in regular intervals that jut out of the external belt.
Numerous doors (porta) are set into the walls;like Giove, on the west, called so because the head of the god is sculpted on the key block in the vault of the door.
Near the south door we find ruins of the theater, the only ones visible inside the city whose road plan consisted of a regular grill where the main north-south axel was Via Amerina.
Externally, along the north side of the walls, the ruins of an amphitheatre and a Roman mausoleum are conserved.

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Best Western Hotel Viterbo · Via San Camillo De Lellis, 6 · 01100 Viterbo Italy
Telephone: +39 0761.270100 · Fax: +39 0761.275717 · Toll Free: 800.820.080 · Email: info@hotelviterbo.com

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