DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0364
CHAPTER XVII.
BIEDA.—BLERA.
Some things in it yon may meet with, which are out of the common road ; a
Duke there is, and the scene lies in Italy.—Beaumont and Fletcher.
Akotheb Etruscan site of great interest, but very little
known, is Bieda, a Tillage five or six miles south-west of
Vetralla. It is the representative of the ancient town of
Blera, of which its name is an Italian corruption.1 Blera
could not have been a place of importance, under either
Etruscans or Romans. Not once is it mentioned by ancient
historians, and its name only occurs in the catalogues of
geographers.2 We know that it was a small town at the
commencement of the Empire ;3 that it was on the Via
Clodia, between the Forum Clodii and Tuscania;4 and
there ends our knowledge of it from ancient sources.
That it had an existence in Etruscan times, we learn, not
from the pages of history, but from the infallible records
of its extant monuments.
Bieda is best visited from Vetralla. The road for the
first two miles is the highway to Corneto and Civita
1 When I in Latin words follows a since they had no b in their language,
consonant, the Italians are wont to Ann. Instit. 1833, p. 19 ; 1834, p. 180.
change it into i; as from clarus, planus, - Strabo, V. p. 226, ed. Casaub.
fiamma, they make chiaro, piano, fiam- Ptolem. Geog. p. 72, ed. Bertii. Plin.
ma; and r is sometimes changed into d, Nat. His. III. 8.
as rams into rado, porphyrites into por- 3 Strabo classes it among the xoAi'x""
fido. Blera must have been called avxvai of Etruria.
Phlera, or Phlere by the Etruscans, 4 Tab. Peuting. See page 273.
BIEDA.—BLERA.
Some things in it yon may meet with, which are out of the common road ; a
Duke there is, and the scene lies in Italy.—Beaumont and Fletcher.
Akotheb Etruscan site of great interest, but very little
known, is Bieda, a Tillage five or six miles south-west of
Vetralla. It is the representative of the ancient town of
Blera, of which its name is an Italian corruption.1 Blera
could not have been a place of importance, under either
Etruscans or Romans. Not once is it mentioned by ancient
historians, and its name only occurs in the catalogues of
geographers.2 We know that it was a small town at the
commencement of the Empire ;3 that it was on the Via
Clodia, between the Forum Clodii and Tuscania;4 and
there ends our knowledge of it from ancient sources.
That it had an existence in Etruscan times, we learn, not
from the pages of history, but from the infallible records
of its extant monuments.
Bieda is best visited from Vetralla. The road for the
first two miles is the highway to Corneto and Civita
1 When I in Latin words follows a since they had no b in their language,
consonant, the Italians are wont to Ann. Instit. 1833, p. 19 ; 1834, p. 180.
change it into i; as from clarus, planus, - Strabo, V. p. 226, ed. Casaub.
fiamma, they make chiaro, piano, fiam- Ptolem. Geog. p. 72, ed. Bertii. Plin.
ma; and r is sometimes changed into d, Nat. His. III. 8.
as rams into rado, porphyrites into por- 3 Strabo classes it among the xoAi'x""
fido. Blera must have been called avxvai of Etruria.
Phlera, or Phlere by the Etruscans, 4 Tab. Peuting. See page 273.