Ferentinum
Ferentinum, a small town of Latium
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- A small solitary town of the Hernici, in Latium, on the Via Latina, between Anagnia and Frusino, now Ferentino, Liv. 4, 51, 7; 7, 9, 1; 32, 2. —Used to signify a little solitary countrytown, Hor. Ep. 1, 17, 8.—
- B Derivv.
- 1 Fĕrentīnus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Ferentinum; only subst.: Fĕrentīni, ōrum, m., the inhabitants of Ferentinum, Ferentines, Sil. 8, 395.—
- 2 Fĕrentīnas, ātis, m., Ferentine: ager, Liv. 26, 9, 11: populus, id. 9, 43, 23; also: Ferentinatis populus, Titin. ap. Prisc. p. 629 P.—In plur. subst.: Fĕrentīnātes, ium, m., the inhabitants of Ferentinum, Ferentines, Plin. 3, 5, 9, § 64; Liv. 34, 42, 5; Inscr. Orell. 1011. —
- II Fĕrentīnum or Fĕrentium, ĭi, n., a small town in Etruria, the birthplace of the Emperor Otho, now Ferento, Plin. 3, 5, 8, § 52; Suet. Oth. 1; Tac. A. 15, 53; called municipium Ferentium, id. H. 2, 50 Orell. N. cr.; and: municipium Ferenti, Vitr. 2, 7, 4.—
- B Deriv.: Fĕrentīnen-sis, e, adj., of or belonging to Ferentinum, Ferentine: Colonia, Front. de Colon. p. 131 Goes.; cf. Inscr. Orell. 3507.—In the form FERENTIENSIS, Inscr. in Ann. dell’ Inscr. Archeol. 1, p. 176.
- 1. (ook Ferentium) stad in Etrurië, nu Ferento;
- 2. stad in het gebied v.d. Hernici in Latium, nu Ferentino; — inw. en adj. Ferentīnās, ātis (m);
- 3. streek ten W. v.h. Albaanse Meer (ten Z. v. Rome) met een heilig woud v.d. Latijnse godin Ferentīna, ae f en bron v.e. riviertje, de aqua Ferentina.
- a small town of Latium: Ferentinum ire, i. e. to an obscure village, H.
FERE´NTINUM or FERE´STIUM (Φερεντῖνον, Strab. 5. p. 226; Φερεντία, Ptol. 3.1.50: Ferento), a city of Etruria, situated on the N. of the Ciminian range, about 5 miles distant from the Tiber, and the same distance from the modern city of Viterbo. It is not mentioned in history during the period of Etruscan independence, and must probably have been then a mere dependency of Volsinii: Strabo speaks of it as one of the smaller towns in the interior of Etruria, but we learn from other authorities, as well as from existing remains, that it must have been in his time a flourishing municipal town: Vitruvius notices the excellent quality of the stone found in its neighbourhood, and the numerous statues and other monuments hewn out of this material which adorned the town itself (Vitr. 2.7.4). In common with most of the cities of Etruria, it had received a Roman colony before the end of the Republic, but did not obtain the title of a colony; and is termed, both by Vitruvius and Tacitus, a municipium. (Lib. Colon. p. 216; Vitruv. l. c.;Tac. Hist. 2.50.) It derived some distinction from being the birth-place of the Emperor Otho, who was of a noble and ancient Etruscan family (Suet. Oth. 1; Tac. l. c.): we learn also that it possessed an ancient and celebrated temple of Fortune, i. e. probably of the Etruscan goddess Nursia or Nortia (Tac. Ann. 15.53). All these circumstances point to it as a place of consideration under the Roman Empire, and we find it termed in an inscription civitas splendidissima Ferentinensium( Orell. Inscr. 3507): it appears to have survived the fall of the Empire, and retained its episcopal see till the 12th century, when it was attacked and destroyed by the people of the neighbouring city of Viterbo, on account of some religious disputes which had arisen between the two (Alberti, Descrizione d'Italia, 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 scena, or stage-front, is particularly remarkable: it is 136 feet long, and built of massive rectangular blocks of volcanic masonry, on which rests a mass of Roman brickwork with arches, decidedly of Imperial times: while seven gates, with flat arches for architraves, open in the facade itself. The lower part of this construction is supposed by Mr. Dennis to be certainly an Etruscan work; but the Cav. Canina regards the whole edifice as a work of the Roman Empire. (Canina, in the Annali dell' Inst. 1837, pp. 62--64; Dennis, Etruria, vol. i. pp. 204--210.) Besides the theatre, portions of the city walls and gates, and various ruins of buildings of Roman date, are still remaining on the site of Ferento.
The ancient name is variously written: the MSS. of Tacitus and Suetonius fluctuate between Ferentium and Ferentinum: Ptolemy writes it Ferentia (Φεπεντία); and the ethnic form used by Vitruvius, municipium Ferentis,i s in favour of the form Ferentium: on the other hand, the inscription above cited (which certainly belongs to the Etruscan and not to the Hernican town) gives the form Ferentinensis from Ferentinum, and the Liber Coloniarum also has Colonia Ferentinensisf or the Etruscan colony.
[E.H.B]FERENTI´NUM (Φερέντινον: Eth. Ferentinās, ātis, but sometimes also Ferentinus, Sil. Ital.; 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. 5. p. 237; Itin. Ant. pp. 302, 305.) 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. 4.51.) 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. 7.9.) 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. 9.43.) At what period they afterwards obtained the civitas is uncertain: in B.C. 195 they are mentioned as possessing only the Latin franchise (Id. 34.42); 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. p. 77.) 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. 10.3.) At a later period Ferentinum, in common with most of the neighbouring towns, received 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. Inscr. 1011). In B.C. 211 the territory of Ferentinum was traversed and ravaged by Hannibal (Liv. 26.9); 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. 1.17. 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. 6. p. 144; Bunbury, in Class. Museum, vol. 2. p. 164.) 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) 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. (Westphal, Rö. mische Kampagne, p. 85; Dionigi, Viaggio ad alcune Città del Lazio, pp. 4--18.)
[E.H.B](1) A town of Etruria, south of Volsinii, birthplace of the emperor Otho.
(2) An ancient town of the Hernici in Latium, southwest of Anagnia, colonized by the Romans in the Second Punic War.
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.
Ferentinum 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).
BIBLIOGRAPHYT. Ashby in RömMitt 24 (1909) 28-48; A. Bartoli in BdA 34 (1949) 293-306MPI; G. Gullini in ArchCl 6 (1954) 185-216 & pls. 44-63; L. Benevolo & F. Fasolo in Istituto di Storia dell'Architettura 10 (1955) 8-11PI.
L. RICHARDSON JR