Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Via Cassia and the Via Traiana Nova between Bolsena and Chiusi

1965; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 33; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0068246200007352

2045-239X

William V. Harris,

Historical and Architectural Studies

The Roman road-system between Bolsena and Chiusi is for several reasons one of particular interest. It was detectably influenced by changes in the pattern of settlement; it was the scene of an ambitious engineering project under Trajan; and it covers three different types of country, the tufa hills of Northern Lazio, the clay and limestone ridges to the north of the River Paglia and finally the flood-plain of the upper Val di Chiana.In the third century B.C. the importance of the Etruscan town on the site of Orvieto sharply declined and Bolsena became the leading town of the area. Orvieto is probably the site of Etruscan Volsinii. This identification, which goes back to K. O. Müller, has been assailed by R. Bloch in a series of articles on the archaeology of Bolsena. It is, however, supported by the evidence of both sites: the finds at Orvieto, notably the rich groups of sixth-century and fifth-century tombs recently excavated by Bizzarri in the Crocefisso del Tufo cemetery, easily outweigh the small quantity of early material which has emerged from the Bolsena site.