Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 2) (London, 1848)

CHAPTER XLV.
TELAMONE.—TELAMON.

— dives opum Prianri dum regna manebant ;
Nunc tantum sinus, et statio malefida carinis.

Virgil.

South of Grosseto, the next place of Etruscan interest
is Telamone, or Talamone, eighteen miles distant. For
the first half of the way the road traverses a wide plain,
crossing the Ombrone by a ferry. This, the Umbro of
antiquity—non ignobile flumen—is a stream of no great
width, and ought to be spanned by a bridge. In Pliny's
time it was navigable;1 but for what distance we know
not. Passing Alberese and its quarries,2 the road enters a
wooded valley, with a range of hills on the right renowned
as a favourite haunt of the wild-boar and roebuck—

Ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus.

Hither accordingly the cacciatori of Rome and Florence
resort in the season, ^taking up their quarters at Collecchio,

1 Plin. III. 8.—Umbro, navigiorum trict on the river was called Umbria.

capax, et ab eo tractus Umbrise. Ruti- 2 A modern writer opines that Albe-

lius (I. 337—341) speaks of the snug rese may be the site of the Eba of

port at its mouth. Cluver (II. p. 474) Ptolemy. Viaggio Antiquario per la

thinks from Pliny's mention of it, that Via Aurelia, p. 43. But an ancient

it gave its name to the Umbrians ; but etymology is here quite superfluous, for

MUHer (Etrusk. einl. 2, 12) on the the name is manifestly derived from

contrary considers it to have received the limestone—alberese—which is quar-

its name from that ancient people ; and ried here,
interprets Pliny as meaning that a dis-

VOL. II. S