Εμφανίζονται 4 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Πληροφορίες για τον τόπο στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΚΑΙΡΕΑ Αρχαία πόλη ΙΤΑΛΙΑ" .
ΚΑΙΡΕΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΙΤΑΛΙΑ
Caere (Khire, Ptol.; Kairea, Strab.; Kaireta, Dionys. : Eth. Kairetanos,
Caeretanus, but the people are usually called Caerites), called by the Greeks
Agylla (Agtlla: Eth. Agtllaios), an ancient and powerful city of Southern Etruria,
situated a few miles from the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, on a small stream now
called the Vaccina, anciently known as the Caeretanus amnis. (Plin. iii. 5. s.
8; Caeritis amnis, Virg. Aen. viii. 59.) Its territory bordered on that of Veii
on the E. and of Tarquinii on the N.; the city itself was about 27 miles distant
from Rome. Its site is still marked by the village of Cervetri. All ancient writers
agree in ascribing the foundation of this city to the Pelasgians, by whom it was
named Agyllaj the appellation by which it continued to be known to the Greeks
down to a late period. Both Straboh and Dionysius derive these Pelasgians from
Thessaly, according to a view of the migration of the Pelasgic races, very generally
adopted among the Greeks. The same authorities assert distinctly that it was not
till its conquest by the Tyrrhenians (whom Strabo calls Lydians), that it obtained
the name of Caere: which was derived, according to the legend related by Strabo
from the Greek word Chhaire, will which the inhabitants saluted the invaders.
(Strab. v. p. 220; Dionys. i. 20., iii. 58; Serv. ad Aen. viii. 597; Plin. iii.
5. s. 8.) We have here the clearest evidence of the two elements of which the
population of Etruria was composed; and there seems no reason to doubt the historical
foundation of the fact, that Caere. was originally. a Pelasgic or Tyrrhenian city,
and was afterwards conquered by the Etruscans or Tuscans (called as usual by the
Greeks Tyrrhenians) from the north. The existence of its double name is in itself
a strong confirmation of this fact; and the circumstance that Agylla, like Spina
on the Adriatic, had a treasury of its own at Delphi, is an additional proof of
its Pelasgic origin (Strab. l. c.).
The period at which Caere fell into the hands of the Etruscans cannot
be determined with any approach to certainty. Niebuhr has inferred from the narrative
of Herodotus that the Agyllaeans were still an independent Pelasgic people, and
had not yet been conquered by the Etruscans, at the time when they waged war with
the Phocaeans of Alalia, about B.C. 535. But it seems difficult to reconcile this
with other notices of Etruscan history, or refer the conquest to so late a period.
It is probable that Agylla retained much of its Pelasgic habits and connexions
long after that event; and the use of the Pelasgic name Agylla proves nothing,
as it continued to be exclusively employed by Greek authors down to a very late
period. Roman authorities throw no light on the early history of Caere, though
it appears in the legendary history of Aeneas as a wealthy and powerful city,
subject to the rule of a king named Mezentius, a cruel tyrant, who had extended
his power over many neighbouring cities, and rendered himself formidable to all
his neighbours. (Liv. i. 2; Virg. Aen. viii. 480.)
The first historical mention of Agylla is found in Herodotus, who
relates that the Agyllaeans were among the Tyrrhenians who joined the Carthaginians
in an expedition against the Phocaean colonists at Alalia in Corsica; and having
taken many captives upon that occasion, they put them all to death. This crime
was visited on them by divine punishments, until they sent to consult the oracle
at Delphi on the subject, and by its advice paid funeral honours to their victims,
with public games and other ceremonies. (Herod. i. 166, 167.) It is clear, therefore,
that at this time Agylla was a maritime power of some consideration; and Strabo
speaks of it as having enjoyed a great reputation among the Greeks; especially
from the circumstance that the Agyllaeans refrained from the piratical habits
common to most of the other Tyrrhenian cities. (Strab. l. c.) This did not, however,
preserve them at a later period from the attacks of Dionysius of Syracuse, who,
having undertaken an expedition to the coasts of Tyrrhenia under pretence of putting
down piracy, landed at Pyrgi, the seaport of Agylla, and plundered the celebrated
temple of Lucina there, from which he carried off an immense booty, besides laying
waste the adjoining territory. (Strab. v. p. 226; Diod. xv. 14.)
Caere plays a much less important part in the history of Rome than
we should have expected from its proximity to that city, and the concurrent testimonies
to its great wealth and power. From the circumstance of its being selected by
the Romans, when their city was taken by the Gauls, as the place of refuge to
which they sent their most precious sacred relics, Niebuhr has inferred (vol.
i. p. 385) that there must have been an ancient bond of close connexion between
the two cities; and in the first edition of his history he even went so far as
to suggest that Rome was itself a colony of Caere; an idea which he afterwards
justly abandoned as untenable. Indeed, the few notices we find of it prior to
this time, are far from indicating any peculiarly friendly feeling between the
two. According to Dionysius, the Caerites were engaged in war against the Romans
under the elder Tarquin, who defeated them in a battle and laid waste their territory;
and again, after his death, they united their arms with those of the Veientines
and Tarquinians against Servius Tullius. (Dionys. iii. 58, iv. 27.) Caere was
also the first place which afforded a shelter to the exiled Tarquin when expelled
from Rome. (Liv. i. 60.) And Livy himself; after recounting the service rendered
by them to the Romans at the, capture of the city, records that they were received,
in consequence of it, into relations of public hospitality (ut hospitium publice
fieret, v. 50), thus seeming to indicate that no such relations previously existed.
From this time, however, they continued on a friendly footing, till B.C. 353,
when sympathy for the Tarquinians induced the Caerites once more to take up arms
against Rome. They were, however, easily reduced to submission, and obtained a
peace for a hundred years. Livy represents this as freely granted, in consideration
of their past services; but Dion Cassius informs us that it was purchased at the
price of half their territory. (Liv. vii. 20; Dion Cass. fr. 33. Bekk.) It is
probable that it was on this occasion also that they received the Roman franchise,
but without the right of suffrage. This peculiar relation was known in later times
as the Caerite franchise, so that in tabulas Caeritum referre, became a proverbial
expression for disfranchising a Roman citizen (Hor. Ep. i. 6, 62; and Schol. ad
loc.), and we are expressly told that the Caerites were the first who were admitted
on these terms. (Gell. xvi. 13. § 7.) But it is strangely represented as in their
case a privilege granted them for their services at the time of the Gaulish war
(Strab. v. p. 220; Gell. l. c.), though it is evident that the relation could
never have been an advantageous one, and was certainly in many other cases rather
inflicted as a punishment, than bestowed as a reward. Hence it is far more probable,
that instead, of being conferred on the Caerites as a privilege immediately after
the Gallic War, it was one of the conditions of the disadvantageous peace imposed
on them in B.C. 353, as a punishment for their support to the Tarquinians. (See
on this subject, Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 67, vol. iii. p. 185; Madvig. de Colon.
p. 240; Mommsen, Die Romische Tribus, pp. 160, 161; Das Romische Munzwesen, p.
246.) It is uncertain whether the Caerites afterwards obtained the full franchise;
we are expressly told that they were reduced to the condition of a Praefecture
(Fest. s.v. praefecturae); but during the Second Punic War they were one of the
Etruscan cities which were forward to furnish supplies to the armament of Scipio
(Liv. xxviii. 45), and it may hence be inferred that at that period they still
retained their nominal existence as a separate community. Their relations to Rome
had probably been adjusted at the same period with those of the rest of Etruria,
concerning which we are almost wholly without information. During the latter period
of the Republic it appears to have fallen into decay, and Strabo speaks of it
as having, in his time, sunk into complete insignificance, preserving only the
vestiges of its former greatness; so that the adjoining watering place of the
Aquae Caeretanae actually surpassed the ancient city in population. (Strab. v.
p. 220.) It appears, however, to have in some measure revived under the Roman
empire. Inscriptions and other monuments attest its continued existence during
that period as a flourishing municipal town, from the reign of Augustus to that
of Trajan. (Gruter, Inscr. p. 214. 1, 226. 4, 236. 4, 239. 9; Bull. d'Inst. Arch.
1840, pp. 5-8; Nibby, Dintorni di Roma, vol. i. p. 342-345.) Its territory was
fertile, especially in wine, which Martial praises as not inferior to that of
Setia. (Mart. xiii. 124; Colum. R. R. iii. 3. § 3.) In the fourth century it became
the see of a bishop, and still retained its existence under its ancient name through
the early part of the middle ages; but at the beginning of the thirteenth century,
great part of the inhabitants removed to another site about 3 miles off, to which
they transferred the name of Caere or Ceri, while the old town came to be called
Caere Vetus, or Cervetri, by which appellation it is still known. (Nibby, l. c.
p. 347.)
The modern village of Cervetri (a very poor place) occupies a small
detached eminence just without the line of the ancient walls. The outline of the
ancient city is clearly marked, not so much by the remains of the walls, of which
only a few fragments are visible, as by the natural character of the ground. It
occupied a table-land, rising in steep cliffs above the plain of the coast, except
at the NE. corner, where it was united by a neck to the high land adjoining. On
its south side flowed the Caeretanus amnis (the Vaccina), and on the N. was a
narrow ravine or glen, on the opposite side of which rises a hill called the Banditaccia,
the Necropolis of the ancient city. The latter appears to have been from four
to five miles in circuit, and had not less than eight gates, the situation of
which may be distinctly traced; but only small portions and foundations of the
walls are visible; they were built of rectangular blocks of tufa, not of massive
dimensions, but resembling those of Veii and Tarquinii in their size and arrangement.
The most interesting remains of Caere, however, are to be found in
its sepulchres. These are, in many cases, sunk in the level surface of the ground,
and surmounted with tumuli; in others, they are hollowed out in the sides of the
low cliffs which bound the hill of the Banditaccia, and skirt the ravines on each
side of it. None of them have any architectural facades, as at Bieda and Castel
d'Asso; their decoration is chiefly internal; and their arrangements present a
remarkable analogy to that of the houses of the Etruscans. Many of them had a
large central chamber, with others of smaller size opening upon it, lighted by
windows in the wall of rock, which served as the partition. This central chamber
represented the atrium of Etruscan houses, and the chambers around it the triclinia,
for each had a bench of rock round three of its sides, on which the dead had lain,
reclining in effigy, as at a banquet. The ceilings of all the chambers had the
usual beams and rafters hewn in the rock. (Dennis's Etruria, vol. ii. p. 32.)
One tomb, called from its discoverer the Regulini-Galassi tomb, is entered by
a door in the form of a rudely pointed arch, not unlike the gate-way at Arpinum,
and like that formed by successive courses of stones gradually approaching till
they meet. Some of the tombs also have their interior walls adorned with paintings,
resembling those at Tarquinii, but greatly inferior to them in variety and interest.
Most of these are of comparatively late date, - certainly not prior to the Roman
dominion, - but one tomb is said to contain paintings of a very archaic character,
probably more ancient than any at Tarquinii. This is the more interesting, because
Pliny speaks of very ancient paintings, believed to be of a date prior to the
foundation of Rome, as existing in his time at Caere. (Plin. xxxv. 3. s. 6.) Another
tomb, recently discovered at Cervetri, is curious from its having been the sepulchre
of a family bearing the name of Tarquinius, the Etruscan form of which (Tarchnas)
is repeated many times in different inscriptions, while others present it in the
Roman form and characters. There seems every reason to believe that this family,
if not actually that of the regal Tarquins of Rome, was at least closely connected
with them. (Dennis, l. c. p. 42-44; Bull. d'Inst. Arch. 1847, p. 56-61.)
The minor objects found in the sepulchres at Caere, especially those
discovered in the Regulini Galassi tomb already mentioned, are of much interest,
and remarkable for the very ancient character and style of their workmanship.
The painted vases and other pottery have, for the most part, a similar archaic
stamp, very few of the beautiful vases of the Greek style so abundant at Vulci
and Tarquinii having been found here. Two little vessels of black earthenware,
in themselves utterly: insignificant, have acquired a high interest from the circumstance
of their bearing inscriptions which there, is much reason to believe to be relics
of the Pelasgian language, as distinguished from what is more properly called
Etruscan. (Dennis, l. c. pp. 54, 55; Lepsius, in the Annali d'Inst. Arch. 1836,
pp. 186-203; Id. Tyrrhenische Pelasger, p. 40-42.)
There is no doubt that Caere, in the days of its power, possessed
a territory of considerable extent,. bordering on those of Veil and Tarquinii,
and probably extending at one time nearly to the mouth of the Tiber. Its seaport
was Pyrgi itself a considerable city, the foundation of which, as well as that
of Agylla, is expressly ascribed to the Pelasgians. Alsium also, of which we find
no notice in the early history of Rome, must at this period have been a dependency
of Caere. Another place noticed as one of the subject towns in the territory of
Caere is Artena which others placed in the Veientine territory, but according
to Livy erroneously (Liv. iv. 61). The grove sacred to Sylvanus, noticed by Virgil,
and placed by him on the banks of the Vaccina (the Caeritis amnis), is supposed
to have been part of the wood which clothed the Monte Abbatone, on the S. side
of the river.
Caere was not situated on the line of the Via Aurelia, which passed
nearer to the coast; but was probably joined to it by a side branch. Another ancient
road, of which some remains are still visible, led from thence to join the Via
Clodia at Careiae. (Gell, Top. of Rome, p. 12.)
The antiquities of Caere, and the various works of art discovered
there, are fully described by Dennis (Etruria, vol. ii. p. 17-63). See also Canina
(Descrizione di Cere antica, Roma, 1838), and Grifi (Monumenti di Cera antica,
Roma, 1841).
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Total results on 24/4/2001: 139 for Caere, 13 for Agylla.
A major Etruscan town on a long tufa plateau 8 km from the sea and
isolated from the surrounding plain by two small rivers, the Fosso del Manganello
and the Fosso della Mola. Legend attributes its foundation to Thessalian invaders
(Herod. 1.167; Diod. 15.14; Dion. Hal. 1.20; 3.58), its name deriving from invasion
by Tyrrhenians. The town was allied with the Carthaginians in a successful battle
against Phokaians in the Sardinian Sea (ca. 535 B.C.). In spite of a sudden change
of alliance with the Tarquinii in 353 B.C., the town received civitas sine suffragio
from Rome for help in battling the Gauls. But in 293 B.C. (Livy 7.19.6) or 273
B.C. (Dion. Hal. fr. 33 Boissevain), a revolt of the Etruscans deprived Caere
of its independence (Fest. 155L, 262L) and of half of its territory, the coastal
strip where the Romans founded four colonies, Fregenae, Alsium, Pyrgi, and Castrum
Novum. Caere's decline dates from this period, and by early Imperial times the
once great metropolis was no more than a village (Strab. 5.2.3).
At least six temples are known, of which only two have been officially
excavated: one on the N ridge (the so-called Manganello temple) and another nearby
dedicated to Hera and frequented by Greek merchants as painted inscriptions indicate.
Some 18th c. excavations revealed extensive Roman buildings, including a theater,
a portico, and an Augusteum (now covered over). Some stretches of city walls of
the 4th c. B.C. can be seen along the ridge.
Three cemeteries are known: the largest on a hilltop NW of the town
(Banditaccia), another on a similar height on the other side of the town (Monte
Abatone), and the third on the S slopes of the hill (Sorbo) on which the town
stands.
Two Iron Age necropoleis of Villanovan type, one on Sorbo and one
at Cava della Pozzalana on the Banditaccia side, contained large and rich chamber
tombs, normally two rooms on the same axis, dug in the tufa rock. Of the richest
graves, which show conspicuous mounds, one was partially built of huge tufa blocks
and displays a corbeled vault. It contained furnishings of gold, silver, and bronze.
By the mid 7th c. B.C. tomb architecture became more elaborate and in the 6th
c. mounds were bordered by tufa moldings and preceded by funerary altars. Later
in the same century the tufa was carved to simulate ceilings, funerary beds, thrones,
and architectural moldings. During the same period an attempt was made to impose
a plan on the cities of the dead with a grid of streets and long rows of facades
for middle class burials. By the beginning of the 4th c. large chambers underground
served for dozens of burials. Some are similar to Greek heroa, some contain niche
burials. From the 3d to the 1st c. B.C. only poor graves are evident, mostly reusing
older tombs.
M. Torelli, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 159 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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