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

BOMARZO. [chap. xiv.

Etruscan plain, and the snow-capt mountains of Cetona
and Amiata in the horizon. This district is said to be
rich in remains of Etruscan roads, sepulchres, and
buildings.2 I observed in one spot a singular line of rocks,
which, at a short distance, seemed to be Cyclopean walls,
but proved to be a natural arrangement ;3 and I remarked
some traces of an ancient road; but beyond this, I saw
nothing—no tombs or other remains of Etruscan antiquity.
About two miles from Viterbo is the village of Bagnaja,
with the celebrated Villa Lante, and thence the curious in
natural phenomena may ascend to the Menicatore, or
rocking-stone, near the summit of the mountahi—an enor-
mous block of peperino, about twenty-two feet long,
twenty wide, and nine high, calculated to weigh more than
two hundred and twenty tons, and yet easily moved with
a slight lever.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIV.

Note I.—Polimaetium.

The Padre Luigi Vittori, arch-priest of Bomarzo, who has recently
published a monograph on that town, translates Polimartium as signifying
" city of Mars ; " and from this confessedly hybrid etymology deduces
its " purely Etruscan origin," as indicating a language composed of
roots partly Greek and partly Latin ! (Memorie di Polimarzio, p. 10).
The worthy arch-priest is bent on referring this name to Pagan times,
though we might have expected one of his cloth to have looked for a

2 Aim. Instit. 1832, p. 282 (Knapp). long corridor lined with masonry, end-

3 It must be these same rocks which ing in a narrow passage which ter-
are mentioned in the Memorie dell' minates in a well. On the corridor
Instituto (I. p. 79, 83), as Cyclopean open four chambers. Orioli, who de-
walls existing about half way on the scribes it, could not pronounce whether
road to Bomarzo. it was Etruscan, Roman, or of the Low

At Corviano, about three miles from Empire, (ap. Ingh. IV. p. 189, tav.
Bomarzo, on this road, there is said to XXXXI. 2.) The passage and shaft are
be a singular tomb, composed of a very quite Etruscan features.