Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/154

 FERENTIls'UM. deriTod some distinction from being the birth-place of the Emperor Otho, who was of a noble and ancient Etmscan family (Suet. 0th. I; Tac. L c.): we learn also that it possessed an ancient and celebrated temple of F(nrtune, L e. probably of the Etruscan goddess Nnrsia or Nortia (Tac. Ann. zv. 53). All these circamstanoes point to it as a place of consideration under the Roman Empire, and we find it termed in an inscription "civitas splen- didissima Ferentinensinm " (Orell. Inter. S507): it appears to have survived Uie £aX of the Empire, and retained its episoopal see till the 12th oenturj, when it was attacked aiid destroyed by the people of the neighbouring city of ViterbOf <m account of some religious disputes which had arisen between the two (Allierti, DescHziane d'ltalia, p. 62). The site is now uninhabited, but is still known by the name of Ferento: and the ruins of the ancient city are considerable, the most important of them being a theatre, which is, in some respects, one of the best preserved monuments of the kind remaining in Italy. The scenoy or stage-front^ is particularly re- markable : it is 136 feet long, and built of massive rectangular blocks of volcanic masoniy, on which rests a mass of Roman brickwork with arches, de- cidedly of Imperial times : while seven gates, with flat arches for architraves, open in the facade itself. Tlie lower part of this o(nistruction is supposed by Mr. Dennis to be certainly an Etmscan work; but the Cav. Canina regards the whole edifice as a work of the Roman Empire. (Canina, in the Annali delF JnsL 1837, pp. 62 — 64; D^mls, Etruria^ voli. p p.204— -210.) Besides the theatre, portions (^ the city walls ai'id gates, and various ruins of buildings of Roman date, are still remuning on the site of FrretUo, The ancient name is variously written : the MSS. of Tacitus and Suetonius finctuate between Feren- tium and Ferentinum: Ptolemy writes it Ferentia (^cpfi^fa); and the ethnic form used by Vitruvius, "municipium Ferentis/' is in fitvour of the form Feiientium : on the other hand, the inscription above cited (which certainly belongs to the Etruscan and not to the Uemican town) gives the form Ferenti- nensis from Ferentinum, and the Liber Coloniarum also has *' Colonia Ferentinensis " for the Etruscan colony.^r- [E.H.B.] FERENTrNUM (*€p4in-tPoy : Eth. Ferentinfis, itis, but sometimes also Ferentinus, Sil. Ital. viiL 393; Jul. Obseq. § 87: Fermiino), a city of the Hemicans; but induded, ynAx the other towns of that people, in Latinm, in the more extended and later sense of that term. It was situated on the Via Latina, between Anagnia and Frusino, and was dis- tant^ 8 miles from the fonner (or, more strictly speak- ing, from the Compitum Anagniuum), and 7 from tlie latter town. (Strab. v. p. 237; Jtin. Ant. pp. 302, 305.) According to Livy, it would seem to have been at one period a Yolscian city; for he de- scribes the Volscians as taking refuge there when they were defeated by the Roman consul L. Farius in D. a 413; but they soon after abandoned the town, which was given over, together with its terri- tory, to the Hernicans. (Liv. iv. 61.) We subse- quently 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 origi- nally a Hemican city, and had been wrested from them by the Volscians in the first instance. It con- tinued after this to be one of the chief cities of the HeniicaDS, and took a prominent part in the war of ^ Tv^, U*iX^ 'V*^ ^"^^/^ ^ ? ** ^ /H ^ */'*, FERENTINUM. 895 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 Hemici, on the contrary, Fe- rentinum was one of the three cities that refused to join in the defection from Rome, and which were re- warded for their fidelity by being allowed to retain, their own laws, which they preferred to the rights of Roman citizenship. (Id. iz. 43.) At what pe- riod they afterwards obtained the civitas is uncertain:' in B.G. 195 they are mentioned as possessing only the Latin franchise (Id. zzxiv. 42); and an inscrip- tion still preserved, which cannot be earlier than the second oentnxy b. c, records their possession of their own censors, a magistracy which is not found in the. Ronum munidpia. (Zumpt, Comment. Epigr. p. 77.) It is therefore probable that they did not ob- tain the Roman franchise till after the Social War; and the contrary cannot be inferred from the title of Munidpium given to them by Gellius in dting an oration of C. Gracchus, in whbh that orator rektes an instance of flagrant oj^ression exercised by a Roman praetor upon two magistrates of Ferentinum. (Gell. X. 3.) At a later period Ferentinum, in common with most of the ndghbouring towns, re« ceived a colony (Lib. Colon, p. 234); but the new settlers seem to have kept themselves distinct from the former inhabitants, as we find in inscriptions the '* Ferentinates Novani" (OrelL Inter. 1011). In B. c 211 the territozy of Ferentinum was traversed and ravaged by Hannibal (Liv. xxvi. 9); but with thb exception we hear littie of it in history, though it appeara 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 com- mentatora suppose the Ferentinum noticed in the passage in question to be the Tuscan town of the name. (Hor. Ep. i. 17. 8 ; SchoL Cruq. o^ he.') It was distant 48 miles from Rome, on a hill rising immediately on the left of the Via Latina, which passed dose to its southern side, but did not enter the town. The existing remains of antiquity at Feren^mo are of considerable interest They comprise large portions of the andent walls, constructed in the Cy- clopean style, of large irregular and polygonal blocks of Umestone, but less massive and stnking than those of Alatri and Segni, They are also in many places patched or surmounted with RcHuan masonry ; and one of the gates, looking towards Fromnone, has the waUs composing its sides of Cydopean work, while the arch above it is evidentiy Roman, as well as the upper part of the walL A kind of citadd on the highest point of the hill crowned by the modern cathedral, is remarkable as bemg supported on three sides by massive walls or substructions which pre- sent a marked approach to the pdygonal structure, but which, as an inscription still remaining on them informs us, were built from the ground by two ma- gistrates of Ferentinum at a period certainly not earlier than b. a 150. (Bunsen, in the Awn, d, InsL Arch. voL vi. p. 144; Bunbury, in Clou. Mt^ tevm, voL ii. p. 164.) Numerous other portions of Roman buildings are still extant eX Fertntino^t^ well as inscriptions, one of which, recording the munifi- cence of a certain A. Quinctilius Prisons to his fellow dtizens, is cut in the living rock on an arehitectural monument fadng the line of the Via Latina towards FrosinonCt and forms a picturesque and striking object. The inscription (which is given by West-