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FERENTINO (Town) LAZIO
Ferentinum (Pherentinon: Eth. Ferentinas, atis, but sometimes also Ferentinus,
Sil. Ital. viii. 393; Jul. Obseq. 87: Ferentino), a city of the Hernicans; but
included, with the other towns of that people, in Latium, in the more extended
and later sense of that term. It was situated on the Via Latina, between Anagnia
and Frusino, and was distant 8 miles from the former (or, more strictly speaking,
from the Compitum Anagninum), and 7 from the latter town (Strab. v.; Itin. Ant.).
According to Livy, it would seem to have been at one period a Volscian city; for
he describes the Volscians as taking refuge there when they were defeated by the
Roman consul L. Furius in B.C. 413; but they soon after abandoned the town, which
was given over, together with its territory, to the Hernicans (Liv. iv. 51). We
subsequently find the Volscians complaining of this as a direct spoliation (Id.
56); but from the position of Ferentinum, it seems most probable that it was originally
a Hernican city, and had been wrested from them by the Volscians in the first
instance. It continned after this to be one of the chief cities of the Hernicans,
and took a prominent part in the war of that people against Rome in B.C. 361,
but was taken by assault by the Roman consuls (Liv. vii. 9). In the last revolt
of the Hernici, on the contrary, Ferentinum was one of the three cities that refused
to join in the defection from Rome, and which were rewarded for their fidelity
by being allowed to retain their own laws, which they preferred to the rights
of Roman citizenship (Id. ix. 43). At what period they afterwards obtained the
civitas is uncertain: in B.C. 195 they are mentioned as possessing only the Latin
franchise (Id. xxxiv. 42); and an inscription still preserved, which cannot be
earlier than the second century B.C., records their possession of their own censors,
a magistracy which is not found in the Roman municipia (Zumpt, Comment. Epigr.).
It is therefore probable that they did not obtain the Roman franchise till after
the Social War; and the contrary cannot be inferred from the title of Municipium
given to them by Gellius in citing an oration of C. Gracchus, in which that orator
relates an instance of flagrant oppression exercised by a Roman praetor upon two
magistrates of Ferentinum (Gell. x. 3). At a later period Ferentinum, in common
with most of the neighbouring towns, received a colony (Lib. Colon.); but the
new settlers seem to have kept themselves distinct from the former inhabitants,
as we find in inscriptions the Ferentinates Novani (Orell. Inscr. 1011). In B.C.
211 the territory of Ferentinum was traversed and ravaged by Hannibal (Liv. xxvi.
9); but with this exception we hear little of it in history, though it appears
from extant remains and inscriptions to have been a considerable town. Horace.
however, alludes to it as a quiet and remote country place; a character it may
well have retained, notwithstanding the proximity of the Via Latina, though some
commentators suppose the Ferentinum noticed in the passage in question to be the
Tuscan town of the name (Hor. Ep. i. 17. 8; Schol. Cruq. ad loc.). It was distant
48 miles from Rome, on a hill rising immediately on the left of the Via Latina,
which passed close to its southern side, but did not enter the town.
The existing remains of antiquity at Ferentino are of considerable
interest. They comprise large portions of the ancient walls, constructed in the
Cyclopean style, of large irregular and polygonal blocks of limestone, but less
massive and striking than those of Alatri and Seyni. They are also in many places
patched or surmounted with Roman masonry; and one of the gates, looking towards
Frosinone, has the walls composing its sides of Cyclopean work, while the arch
above it is evidently Roman, as well as the upper part of the wall. A kind of
citadel on the highest point of the hill crowned by the modern cathedral, is remarkable
as being supported on three sides by massive walls or substructions which present
a marked approach to the polygonal structure, but which, as an inscription still
remaining on them informs us, were built from the ground by two magistrates of
Ferentinum at a period certainly not earlier than B.C. 150 (Bunsen, in the Ann.
d. Inst. Arch. vol. vi.; Bunbury, in Class. Museum, vol. ii.). Numerous other
portions of Roman buildings are still extant at Ferentino, as well as inscriptions,
one of which, recording the munificence of a certain A. Quinctilius Priscus to
his fellow citizens, is cut in the living rock on an architectural monument facing
the line of the Via Latina towards Frosinone, and forms a picturesque and striking
object. The inscription (which is given by Westphal) [p. 896] records the names
of three farms or fundi in the territory of Ferentinum, two of which, called Rojanum
and Ceponianum, still retain the appellations of Roana and Cipollara.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ferentinum (Ferentino) Latium, Italy. A Hernican hill town on the Via Latina (modern
Casilina) about 75 km SE of Rome. It was taken by the Romans in 361 B.C., remained
faithful to Rome in the Hernican revolt, and defied Hannibal in the second Punic
war, for which he laid it waste (Livy 7.9.1; 9.42.11; 26.9.11). It is famous for
its fortifications and its monumental acropolis.
The walls are of local limestone, large polygonal blocks approaching
rectangles with much coursing, the two surviving gates, Porta Stupa and Porta
Sanguinaria, capped with arches of regularly cut voussoirs. The walls, much rebuilt
in mediaeval times, can be followed around a winding circuit that avoids acute
angles and sites the gates with some sophistication, but is towerless.
The acropolis had its own fortifications, which come tangent to the
city walls at the N corner and probably joined them there, but the NE side cannot
be traced. The most important front is the SW, overlooking the town, where a bold
rectangular outwork juts forward at the S corner. At its base this is of roughly
trapezoidal blocks of limestone in rough coursing set in a deep footing trench
cut into the stone of the hill. There is some effect of bossing and a marked batter,
and this work is carried as coigning part way up the superstructure, which is
of travertine cut in long thin blocks laid in regular courses of unequal height.
The superstructure houses a system of concrete vaults, an interior substructure
of well-developed plan and ingenious fenestration that carried at the level of
the top of the acropolis a rectangular building raised a meter above a surrounding
terrace, perhaps a temple. It is known only that it faced NE, away from the town,
and had walls of, or faced with, travertine, files of Ionic or Corinthian columns
on a raised pliath down either side of a central nave, and curious small windows
evenly spaced just above the plinth. The approach and pronaos, if there was one,
are completely lost. Some have thought the whole might have been roofed with a
vault. A number of advanced building techniques were employed: concrete vaulting,
relieving arches over lintels, a segmental arch where there was not room for a
full semicircle. The whole structure is adorned with four building inscriptions
of the censors A. Hirtius and M. Lollius (CIL X, 5837-40). The date is much debated,
but the architectural sophistication inclines the majority to the early 1st c.
B.C. The whole complex is of a build with the rest of the acropolis fortifications,
though variations in masonry appear in other stretches.
Just NE of the supposed boundary of the acropolis is a well-preserved
market building of Republican date, a vaulted hall along one side of which open
five vaulted shops, an important predecessor of the basilica of the Mercati di
Traiano in Rome. There are poor remains of a theater, and at nearby Terme Pompeo
are cold sulphur baths that were used in antiquity.
F erentinum has yielded a great many inscriptions, some of which are
housed in the Raccolta d'Arte Coinunale, but the most famous is the will of Aulus
Quintilius of the time of Trajan, carved in the rock outside Porta Maggiore, in
which he left income from lands to the community (CIL x, 5853).
L. Richardson, jr, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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