United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower Italy, with the exception of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and of the Apulo-Messapian coast.
Up and down these passes we forced our way through interlacing branches, which drooped too low, until we had crossed the ridges on either side the Cremera, and gained the valley at the head of which is Isola Farnese, the rock-fortress supposed to occupy the site of the citadel of Etruscan Veii.
His country, thus preserved by arms, he unquestionably saved a second time in peace, when he hindered the people from removing to Veii, both the tribunes pressing the matter with greater earnestness after the burning of the city, and the commons of themselves being more inclined to that measure; and that was the cause of his not resigning his dictatorship after the triumph, the senate entreating him not to leave the commonwealth in so unsettled a state.
Brick was also largely employed in the construction of the foundations and inner walls of public buildings, being arranged at a later date into ornamental patterns, to which the names of opus incertum and opus reticulatum were given; and in the manufacture of this substance, which they were probably at first taught by the Etruscan artificers of Veii in the neighbourhood, the Romans reached a high degree of perfection.
By these Veii was first invested. A little before the commencement of this siege, when a full meeting of the Etrurians was held at the temple of Voltumna, it was not finally determined whether the Veientians were to be supported by the public concurrence of the whole confederacy.
But for this they had made no preparation, having burned all the provision of food that was in the houses of the city, while that which was in the field had by this time been carried into Veii; wherefore, dividing their forces, they set some to keep watch on the Citadel, and some they sent to gather spoil in the country round about.
Some of the ancient pillars of Hymettian marble belonging to the peristyle of the temple of Ceres and Proserpine, still as widely spaced as they used to be, adorn the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, built on the foundation of that shrine; while twenty-four remarkably fine fluted Corinthian columns of the same material divide the triple nave of Santa Sabina on the Aventine, and are supposed to have belonged to the ancient Temple of Juno Regina, erected by Camillus after the destruction of the Etruscan city of Veii.
When the armistice expired in the end of 346, the Romans on their part resolved to undertake a war of conquest against Etruria; and on this occasion the war was carried on not merely to vanquish Veii, but to crush it. Conquest of Veii
But there are spots that are less known at no greater distance, which yet do not yield in beauty or interest to these familiar resorts. Chief among these is Veii, whose very name has in it a far-off old-world sound.
Peter's from the old wall near by the ilex avenue, or making excursions to Frascati, Tusculum, and Albano, or spending a day in wandering among the ruins of the Etruscan city of Veii, lost to the world so long ago that even the site of it was unknown to the Caesars, or strolling by the shore at Ostia, or under the magnificent pineta at Castel Fusano, whose lofty trees repeat, as in a dream, the sound of the blue Mediterranean that washes the coast at half a mile distant.
Word Of The Day