Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ATRIA Ancient city ITALY" .
ATRIA (Ancient city) ITALY
Adria, Atria, Hadria, or Hatria (Adria or Atria). It is impossible
to establish any distinction between these forms, or to assign the one (as has
been done by several authors) to one city, and another to the other. The oldest
form appears to have been Hatria, which we find on coins, while Hadria is that
used in all inscriptions: some Mss. of Livy have Adria and others Atria. Pliny
tells us that Atria was the more ancient form, which was afterwards changed into
Adria but the Greeks seem to have early used Adria for the city, as well as Adrias
for the sea. A city of Cisalpine Gaul, situated between the Padus and the Athesis,
not far from their mouths, and still called Adria. It is now distant more than
14 miles from the sea, but was originally a sea-port of great celebrity. Its foundation
is ascribed to Diomed by Stephanus Byzantinus, and some other late writers: Justin
also (xx. 1), probably following Theopompus, calls it a city of Greek origin;
but these testimonies are far outweighed by those of the Roman writers, who agree
in describing it as an Etruscan colony. It was probably established at the same
period with their other settlements on the north side of the Apennines, and became,
from its position, the principal emporium for their trade with the Adriatic; by
which means it attained to so flourishing a condition, as to have given name to
the gulf, or portion of the sea in its immediate neighbourhood, from whence the
appellation was gradually extended to the whole of the inland sea still called
the Adriatic. To this period may also be ascribed the great canals and works which
facilitated its communications with the adjoining rivers, and through them with
the interior of Cisalpine Gaul, at the same time that they drained the marshes
which would otherwise have rendered it uninhabitable. (Liv. v. 33; Plin. iii.
16. s. 20; Strab. v. p. 214; Varro de L. L. v. 161; Festus, p. 13, ed. Muller;
Plut. Camill. 16.) Notwithstanding its early celebrity, we have scarcely any information
concerning its history; but the decline of its power and prosperity may reasonably
be ascribed to the conquest of the neighbouring countries by the Gauls, and to
the consequent neglect of the canals and streams in its neighbourhood. The increasing
commerce of the Greeks with the Adriatic probably contributed to the same result.
It has been supposed by some writers that it received, at different periods, Greek
colonies, one from Epidamnus and the other from Syracuse; but both statements
appear to rest upon misconceptions of the passages of Diodorus, from which they
are derived. (Diod. ix. Exc. Vat. p. 17, xv. 13; in both of which passages the
words ton Adrian certainly refer to the Adriatic sea or gulf, not to the city,
the name of which is always feminine.) The abundance of vases of Greek manufacture
found here, of precisely similar character with those of Nola and Vulci, sufficiently
attests a great amount of Greek intercourse and influence, but cannot be admitted
as any proof of a Greek colony, any more than in the parallel case of Vulci. (R.
Rochette in the Annali dell Inst. Arch. vol. vi. p. 292; Welcker, Vasi di Adria
in the Bullettino dell Inst. 1834, p. 134.) Under the Romans Adria appears never
to have been a place of much consequence. Strabo speaks of it as a small town,
communicating by a short navigation with the sea; and we learn from Tacitus (Hist.
iii. 12) that it was still accessible for the light Liburnian ships of war as
late as the time of Vitellius. After the fall of the Western Empire it was included
in the exarchate of Ravenna, but fell rapidly into decay during the middle ages,
though it never ceased to exist, and always continued an episcopal see. Since
the opening of new canals it has considerably revived, and has now a population
of 10,000 souls. Considerable remains of the ancient city have been discovered
a little to the south of the modern town towards Ravegnano; they are all of Roman
date, and comprise the ruins of a theatre, baths, mosaic pavements, and part of
the ancient walls, all which have been buried to a considerable depth under the
accumulations of alluvial soil., Of the numerous minor antiquities discovered
there, the most interesting are the vases already alluded to. (See Muller, Etrusker,
i. p. 229, and the authors there cited.) The coins ascribed to this city certainly
belong to Adria in Picenum.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
A city in Picenum about five miles from the Adriatic Sea. It is now called Atri. It was one of the eighteen Latin colonies which remained faithful to Rome at the time of Hannibal's invasion.
An ancient city in the territory of the Veneti, between the Adige
and Po and today about 22 km from the Adriatic Sea, from which it derives its
name (Strab. 5.1.8). Some ancient sources attribute its founding to the Greeks
(Just. Epit. 20.1.9) and others to the Etruscans (Plut. Vit. Cam. 16; Livy 5.33.7;
Plin. HN 3.16.120-21), but there is also some evidence pointing toward a Venetic
origin. It flourished especially from the middle of the 6th c. until the end of
the 5th c. B.C. when it was the principal port of the Adriatic as a result of
the importation of Greek products into the valley of the Po. It is uncertain whether
it became a true Greek colony or was an emporium of the Etruscans, whose influence
during that period was spreading N. At the beginning of the 4th c. B.C., Dionysios
I of Syracuse sought to supplant the commercial hegemony of Athens with that of
Sicily, and the founding of Atria is also attributed to him (Etym. Magn., s.v.
Adrias to pelagos). However, archaeological finds show no Sicilian influence.
Toward the end of the 4th c. B.C., Atria was probably occupied by the Gauls, as
seems to be indicated by the discovery of funerary furniture similar to that found
in Gallic tombs. In the Roman period, Atria became a municipium inscribed on the
rolls of the tribus Camilia. Pliny (loc.cit.) mentions the "Atrianorum paludes
quae Septem Maria appellantur" and says that the city was blessed with a
renowned harbor. It is certain that Atria was at that time less than an hour from
the sea, as shown by two lines of marine dunes to the E of the city. The first
dates to the Graeco-Etruscan era and the second, farther E, to the Roman era.
It is entirely possible that even in antiquity Atria was not on the sea but, like
Spina, was connected to the Adriatic by a series of canals.
As early as the Renaissance, there is evidence of archaeological investigations
at Atria. From 1700 on, the Bocchi family of Atria collected Attic red-figure
and black-figure vases, jewelry of local and Etruscan production, inscriptions,
pottery, and Roman glass--nearly all discovered accidentally in the city. The
Bocchi collection, given to the Italian government at the beginning of the 20th
c., still constitutes the most important collection of the Adria museum. All the
Greek pottery from the 6th c. and the 5th c. B.C., for the most part fragmentary,
comes not from tombs but from the ancient settlement in the S part of the modern
city. In that area were discovered remains of buildings on pilings and also of
a theater (known from a drawing of 1662) probably dating to the 2d C. A.D. No
ancient building in Adria is now visible. Because of the flooding of the rivers
and because of the coastal bradyseism, the archaeological levels are very deep
(from 1 to 2 m for the Roman period, and from 3 to 7 m for the pre-Roman period).
Excavations have been made even more difficult by the existence of water-bearing
strata near the surface. The cemeteries that surround the ancient site to the
E, S, and W, only partially explored, date at the earliest to the 4th c. B.C.
and span the years until the Roman Imperial period. The archaic cemeteries have
not yet been discovered.
M. Scarfi, 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 bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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