Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1848)

118 CIVITA CASTELLANA. [chap. vi.

and which, after running high above the road for some
distance, discharges its waters over the precipice. There
are tombs also—genuine Etruscan tombs—on either hand,
though the forms of some are almost obliterated, and
others are sadly injured by the purposes they are now
made to serve—shepherds' huts, cattle-stalls, and hog-sties.
They are mostly in the cliff, which, as the road descends
rapidly to the valley, rises high above your head. Here,,
too, opening in the cliff, are the mouths of several sewers,
similar to those of Sutri and the Etruscan sites described.10
It was probably these subterranean passages that gave
rise to the notion of this being the site of Veii, being, per-
haps, ignorantly mistaken for the cuniculus of Camillus; but
such sewers are to be found beneath the walls of almost
every Etruscan city in the tufo district of the land, where
the rock would admit of easy excavation. Here you are
at the extreme angle of the plateau of Civita Castellana;
the ravine which is spanned by the celebrated bridge opens
on one hand, another and wider glen lies on the other,
bounding the plateau to the east.1 The road passes two

10 The first of these is 5 ft. 6 in. in narrow and very defensible isthmus,

height, 2 ft. 8 in. wide at the bottom? Travellers seem to have overlooked this

tapering upwards to 1 ft. 6 in. It runs position, and the numerous and unequi-

into the rocks some little distance, and vocal remains of the ancient city that

then rises in an upright square chimney, are to be found here, and have been

into which another passage opens hori- surprised at finding few or no antiqui-

zontally above. These are the usual ties in the modern town." (I.p. 292.) Yet,

dimensions and characteristics of these having clearly intimated his opinion that

sewers, which are found on all the the city occupied this corner of the

ancient sites of the Campagna, even in plateau only, he remarks in the fol-

the Gapitoline hill of Rome. lowing passage, that " ruins of the

1 Gell points out this angle of the walls of Fescennium may be observed

cliff pierced by tombs and sewers as the behind the post-house," alluding to

site of the ancient city (which he sup- the piece of wall near the bridge

posestohavebeenFescennium),andadds, which I have already mentioned. It

" This platform seems to have been only is evident that Gell never made the

accessible at one angle, which united it tour of the height of Civita Castellana,

with the height of Civita Castellana by a or he would have observed unequivocal