Aletrium
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- a town in Latium, now Alatri; whence,
- a Ălētrīnas, ātis, adj., pertaining to Aletrium, Cic. Clu. 16. —Ălētrīnātes, the inhabitants of Aletrium, Cic. Clu. 20; Plin. 3, 5, 9, § 63.—
- b Also, Ălētrīnensis, e, the same: foederatus, Cic. Balb. 22 dub.
On a lofty hill in olive-growing country, about 72 km E-SE of Rome. It controls the valley of the river Cosa. A town of the Hernici, Aletrium dates perhaps from the 6th c. B.C. From the 4th c. B.C. on, it was a loyal ally of Rome. In 90 B.C. it acquired Roman citizenship and became a municipium but is rarely mentioned in ancient literature.
It has always been a considerable town. Its massive walls, the finest and most remarkable example of polygonal construction in Italy, are its principal monument. They are built of large blocks of limestone, which are sometimes over 3 m long and over 2 m high: the irregularly shaped blocks are fitted tightly together without cement and their faces have been smoothed. The walls are in two circuits, usually thought to be contemporaneous: they may belong to the 4th c. B.C., but some scholars date them as late as the 2d or even the 1st c. B.C. Both circuits can be traced in their entirety.
The first circuit, which is mingled with mediaeval fortifications, surrounds the town as a whole. Elliptical in shape, it extends for ca. 4 km. Impressive sections of it, over 3 m high in places, can be seen in the N quarter of the town between the Porta S. Francesco and the Porta S. Pietro. Both these gates are ancient and were originally double, their two faces separated by small courts. Some of the polygonal blocks have apotropaic figures carved on them in bas relief, but these are badly weathered.
The second circuit, much shorter but far more impressive, is trapezoidal and extends for more than 600 m around the citadel at the town summit. These walls, except for a short stretch on the N, are almost perfectly preserved and free of later accretions; and they are now easily accessible, since a peripheral road (Via Gregoriana) was built at the foot of them in 1843. Their height varies according to the slope of the ground. At the SE angle they rise to ca. 17 m in 14 interlocked courses. Near the same angle, in the S wall, is the main entrance (Porta di Civita) by which one ascends through the thickness of the wall along an inclined ramp and up some steps to the citadel above: the actual gate (2.75 x 4.50 m) has for its lintel an enormous horizontal monolith. A smaller gate (Grotta del Seininario) pierces the NW wall of the citadel in the same way; its lintel also is horizontal and huge and, although smaller than its mate, weighs several tons: it is adorned with three much damaged apotropaic phalli in bas relief.
Antiquities are housed in the Museo Civico (Palazzo Casegrandi). The notable collection of Latin inscriptions includes one which reveals that ca. 100 B.C. the local grandee L. Betilienus Varus brought an aqueduct into Aletrium from the S. Agnello springs, some 16 km to the N above Guarcino: conspicuous remains of it are visible near the confluence of the river Cosa and the Fosso del Purpuro.
A small temple of the so-called Etrusco-Italic type was excavated on the N outskirts of Alatri in the late 19th c., and a full-scale, if somewhat fanciful, reconstruction of it was erected in the garden of the Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia in Rome, where it can still be seen.
BIBLIOGRAPHYH. Winnefeld, “Antichità di Alatri” in Mitteil. deut. arch. inst., Röm. Abt. 4 (1889), 126-52, pls. V, VIMPI; M. E. Blake, Ancient Roman Construction in Italy (1947) 97f; G. Lugli, La Tecnica Edilizia Romana (1957) 131-34, pls. VII, XXI; L. Gasperini, Aletrium I (1965).
E. T. SALMON