DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0308
CHAPTER XLVIII.
VETULONIA.
Mseonieeque decus quondam Vetulonia gentis.
Sil. Italicds.
The deep foundations that we lay
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains.
We build with what we deem eternal rock—
A distant age asks where the fabric stood.
Cowper.
In former chapters I have spoken of the ancient city of
Vetulonia, and of various sites that have been assigned to
it; and have shown that all of them are far from satisfac-
tory.1 In the course of my wanderings through the
Tuscan Maremma in the spring of 1844, I had the fortune
to fall in with a site, which has stronger claims to be con-
sidered that of Vetulonia than any of those to which
it has hitherto been referred.
Vague rumours had reached my ear of Etruscan anti-
1 It may be well to restate the Ermolao Barbaro, the earliest writer on
various sites where Vetulonia has been the subject, who places it at Orbetello
supposed to have stood. At or near (see Dempster, II. p. 56). I should
Viterbo (Vol. I. pp. 195,200)—on Monte state that when Mannert (Geog. p. 358)
Calvi, three miles from the sea, buried asserts that the village of Badiola on an
in a dense wood (ut supra, p. 226)—at eminence by the river Cornia, and a
Massa Marittima, or five miles westward geographical mile-and-a-lialf (about six
from that town (ut supra, pp. 217, 218) miles English) from the coast, preserves
—on the site of Vulci (Vol. I. p. 405) the memory of the ancient city, he
—and on the hill of Castiglione Ber- evidently refers to the site five miles
nardi, near Monte Rotondo (ut supra, west of Massa.
p. 214). The nearest guess is that of
u2
VETULONIA.
Mseonieeque decus quondam Vetulonia gentis.
Sil. Italicds.
The deep foundations that we lay
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains.
We build with what we deem eternal rock—
A distant age asks where the fabric stood.
Cowper.
In former chapters I have spoken of the ancient city of
Vetulonia, and of various sites that have been assigned to
it; and have shown that all of them are far from satisfac-
tory.1 In the course of my wanderings through the
Tuscan Maremma in the spring of 1844, I had the fortune
to fall in with a site, which has stronger claims to be con-
sidered that of Vetulonia than any of those to which
it has hitherto been referred.
Vague rumours had reached my ear of Etruscan anti-
1 It may be well to restate the Ermolao Barbaro, the earliest writer on
various sites where Vetulonia has been the subject, who places it at Orbetello
supposed to have stood. At or near (see Dempster, II. p. 56). I should
Viterbo (Vol. I. pp. 195,200)—on Monte state that when Mannert (Geog. p. 358)
Calvi, three miles from the sea, buried asserts that the village of Badiola on an
in a dense wood (ut supra, p. 226)—at eminence by the river Cornia, and a
Massa Marittima, or five miles westward geographical mile-and-a-lialf (about six
from that town (ut supra, pp. 217, 218) miles English) from the coast, preserves
—on the site of Vulci (Vol. I. p. 405) the memory of the ancient city, he
—and on the hill of Castiglione Ber- evidently refers to the site five miles
nardi, near Monte Rotondo (ut supra, west of Massa.
p. 214). The nearest guess is that of
u2