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Roman Verona: The Archaeology of its Town-Plan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

I. A. Richmond  and
W. G. Holford
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Extract

Archaeology sheds little light upon the origins of Verona, but ancient literary tradition assigns its foundation to the Rhaetians and Euganeans of northern Italy, while modern philologists do not hesitate to identify the name Verona as Gallic. Actually, there is no doubt that, as Pliny asserts, the town lay in Rhaetian land, for inscriptions mentioning Rhaetian deities and religious functionaries come from its neighbourhood. One may even guess at the site of the Rhaetian oppidum, for there is only one hill at Verona that it can have crowned, namely, the high spur east of the river, on which the Visconti later placed their castle of San Pietro. This overlooks the best point to span the turbulent Adige (Athesis) near Verona, and its position serves as a reminder that the Rhaetians were northern folk looking southwards and choosing to live in a hill-town, like their Gallic kinsmen. The disposition of Trento provides an almost exact parallel, further up the valley.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 13 , November 1935 , pp. 69 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1935

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References

page 69 note 1 Pliny, , N.H. iii, 130Google Scholar, Raetorum et Euganeorum Verona: Livy, v, 35, 1, manus Cenomanorum … ubi nunc Brixia ac Verona urbes sunt, locos tenuere: Justinus, xx, 5, 8 (Galli) sedibus Tuscos expulerunt et … Veronam … condiderunt.

page 69 note 2 Nissen, , Italische Landeskunde, ii, 204, n. 5Google Scholar. His complete account, op. cit., 204–208, is one to which every writer on Verona is naturally indebted.

page 69 note 3 CIL. v, 3898 (Cuslanus), 3904 (Iuppiter Felvennis), 3900 (Ihamnagalla and Sqnnagalla), 3931–2 (flamen Mannisnavius), 3927 (pontif. sacr. Raet.).

page 69 note 4 Panegyr. ix, 8, quam coloniam Cn. Pompeius aliquando deduxerat.

page 69 note 5 Catullus, lxvii, 34, Brixia Veronae mater amata meae.

page 69 note 6 Frothingham, , A.J.A. xviii (1914), 143Google Scholar: Roman Cities in N. Italy and Dalmatia, 250, with a contradictory statement on p. 254. Compare Roman Tridentum, further up the valley, which is laid out on the flats opposite the older hill-fortress.

page 69 note 7 The theatre mouldings are still on the spot: those of the Gate are to be seen in the staircase of the chandler's shop that now occupies the archway (cf. Carotto, in Saraina, De origine et amplitudine civilatis Veronae, Verona, 1540, plates between pp. 31 and 32): those of the Amphitheatre still exist (cf. Maffei, , Verona illustrata, iv, 2, cols. 90–206Google Scholar, tavv. iii–xvi, mouldings tav. vii).

page 70 note 1 Forum of Caesar, personal observation: Arles, Constans, Arles antique, pl. v, p. 256; Mérida, , Arch. Journ. lxxxvii, pl. viiiGoogle Scholar.

page 70 note 2 Haverfield, Ancient Town-planning, 88, fig. 15; Bendinelli, Torino romana, folding plan.

page 70 note 3 Carta Rateriana, see reproduction on p. 139 of G. Biàdego's Verona, volume 45 of the series Italia Artistica (Bergamo, 1914).

page 70 note 4 Trier, Haverfield, op. cit., 126: Torino, Haverfield and Bendinelli, locc. cit.: Mérida, , Arch. Journ., lxxxvii, 99, fig. 1Google Scholar.

page 70 note 5 See note 23 below.

page 70 note 6 Bendinelli, loc. cit.: Fano, personal observation.

page 70 note 7 Haverfield, op. cit., 78.

page 72 note 1 Pompei, , Studi intorno all' anfiteatro di Verona (Verona, 1877), 14–16Google Scholar. The existence of the building is attested by an inscription. Canobio found straight seating near S. Felicità, while Moscardo found the curved end at S. Anastasia. Comparative and approximate lengths are Aries, 100 × 350 metres, Toledo, 100 × 422 m., Mérida, 116 × 420 m. The space now available at Verona is 115 × 325 m., but it may once have been longer and a little wider, allowing for river encroachment.

page 72 note 2 Note its smooth finish and the absence of mouldings, combined with large and irregular stonework. The flood-arch is very high and the original bridge ran up to a high central point, in order to breast the floods for which the town was famous; cf. Panegyr. ix, 8, Athesis ille saxis asper et gurgitibus verticosus et impetu ferox.

page 72 note 3 A.J.A. xviii (1914), 129–145Google Scholar.

page 72 note 4 Saraina, op. cit., pl. i, shews that the Arch lay in the Corsous (curricularis via) near S. Euphemia, not at Piazza Erbe, as Frothingham thought. F.'s idea, that fragments from S. Tommaso (cf. Saraina, pls. iii and iiii, p. 36) belonged to a gate, lacks proof. His ‘Arco di Valerio’ is the early gate at the Arco dei Leoni, inscribed by the IIIIviri, P. Valerius, Q. Caecilius, Q. Servilius and P. Cornelius (op. cit., 31–2, pl.). The Forum is mentioned in Veronae rythmica descr., Rer. Ital. Script. (ed. Carducci-Fiorini), c. 10–11, of A.D. 768–B10, Foro lato spatioso sternato lapidibus, Ubi in quattuor cantus magni instant fornices.

page 72 note 5 Arch of the Gavii, Rossini, Gli archi trionfali, pl. xix; Curtis, , Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, ii, p. 44Google Scholar.

page 72 note 6 Frothingham, Roman Cities in N. Italy and Dalmatia. p. 251 seq.

page 72 note 7 JRS, xxiii, 167.

page 72 note 8 See note 7.

page 74 note 1 The precise course has been disputed. Pompei (Atti della Deputazione Veneta di Storia patria, Saggio di studi intorno alle varie mura della città di Verona, 8), copied by Pagano, thought the wall cut across the angle through Corte Nogara; and this has been denied by Simeoni (Verona, p. xxxiv). But the cours of the later wall, from the Amphitheatre to Arco dei Leoni, is logical, only if it aimed at an earlier wall running obliquely; for, had the earlier angle been a right angle, the lay-out of the later wall would have introduced an unnecessary reentrant.

page 74 note 2 This point is elaborated in JRS, xxiii, 166: it is the striking feature of the rear side of the arch. The rear arches of this gate, provided with recesses for doors, built of bricks and quoined in stone, were published by Pagano (Giornale d'Artiglieria e Genio, Parte 2a (1880–81), tav. 2a, fig. Ia. The bricks measured 0.44 m. × 0.29 × 0.07. The missing element in the scheme, namely, the frontal portcullis, can only have been supplied in the arch which has been postulated behind the present masking façade of Gallienus.

page 74 note 3 CIL. v, 3329Google Scholar; Colonia Augusta Verona nova Gallieniana, Valeriano II et Lucilio Coss., muri Veronensium fabricati ex die III non. Apriliu … dedicati pr. non. Dec., iubente Sanctissimo Gallieno Aug. N., insistente Aur. Marcellino VP. Duc. Duc., curante Iul. Marcellino. …

page 74 note 4 The fasciae are visible on the lateral faces of the stone, unoccupied by the inscription: they are unintelligible unless once carried round. Cf. Frothingham, op. cit., p. 255.

page 74 note 5 Cf. Frothingham, loc. cit.

page 74 note 6 JRS, xxiii, 149–151: Rossini, op. cit., p. 2, pls. vii, viii.

page 74 note 7 JRS, xxiii, 153–154.

page 74 note 8 Fano, Rossini, op. cit., p. 2, pl. ix–xi; JRS, xxiii, 157.

page 74 note 9 Forrer, Strasbourg-Argentorate, pls. xvii–xviii.

page 75 note 1 Pompei, op. cit., 4–5, folding-plan; the wall left the river just north of Ponte Pietra, where Pompei saw it in house n. 8 (op. cit., p. 4). It returned on the south just beyond the church of SS. Faustino e Giovitta, where was a Gate known as the Porta dell' Organo (op. cit., p. 6), mentioned in A.D. 813. It is not to be confused with the Gate of the same name in the Muro Nuovo, usually assigned to the twelfth century (Pompei, op. cit., p. 16, cf. Pagano, op. cit., p. 18, mistakes its date). The wall may have enclosed all Colle S. Pietro, like its successor, or have run up to a watch-tower on the summit; cf. Fick, Arch. Anzeiger, 1930 (Jahrbuch 45), 266–276, fig. 6 (Gerona).

page 75 note 2 Koepp, , Römer in Deutschland, Karte xxii, 128Google Scholar (Köln), Karte iv, 22 (Mainz).

page 75 note 3 Stähelin, Die Schweiz in römischer Zeit (edn. i), p. 511, fig. 162.

page 75 note 4 It has been conjectured that the amphitheatre's external arcade disappeared thus, but the fact is not demonstrable.

page 75 note 5 This is unusual. More often, the external arcade was embodied to save time and material; cf. Blanchet, Enceintes romaines de la Gaule, 90, fig. 21 (Trier); ibid., 40, fig. 8 (Tours); Lanciani, , Forma Urbis Romae, xxxii and xxxviii (Rome)Google Scholar; Dyggve-Brønsted, , Recherches à Salone, i, 16–17, plan B, by Dyggve (Solin)Google Scholar.

page 76 note 1 Blanchet, op. cit., pls. i (Poitiers), ii, i (Bordeaux), ii, 2 (Soissons), iii, 2 (Le Mans).