Punicum
PU´NICUM(Sta Marinella), a village or station on the coast of Etruria, mentioned only in the Tabula, which places it 6 miles beyond Pyrgi (Sta Severa) on the Via Aurelia; and this distance enables us to fix its site at the modern village or hamlet of Sta Marinella, where there are still some traces of a Roman port, and more extensive remains of a Roman villa in the immediate neighbourhood ( Tab. Peut.;Nibby, Dintorni di Roma. vol. 2. p. 313; Dennis's Etruria, vol. 2. p. 7.)
[E.H.B]PU´NICUMcalled by Procopius ( de Aed. 4.6. p. 287) Πικνούς, a town of Moesia Superior, at the mouth of the Pingus ( Tab. Peut. ).
[T.H.D]A site identified in the Peutinger Table, which places it on the Via Aurelia 9.6 km N of Pyrgi. The modern town lies along the S curve of Cape Linaro, the first distinct promontory N of the Tiber. The neighborhood had several scattered settlements in Etruscan times and many opulent villas under the Empire.
South of the Fosso Marangone, which separates the territory of Marinella from that of Civitavecchia, a site called La Castellina has yielded habitations and tombs dating from the 8th c. B.C. to the 3d. One, of the 4th-3d c., has been re-erected in front of the Municipio of Marinella; the material from the excavation is in the Museo Nazionale at Civitavecchia.
This museum also houses material from a Sanctuary of Minerva on a hill overlooking the Punto della Vipera just N of Marinella: architectural terracottas of the late 6th and 3d c., archaic and Hellenistic votive terracottas including several heads of Minerva, and Roman coins down to Trajan. Fine marbles, including an Apollo of Hellenistic type, from the neighboring villas, are also to be seen here.
The city is now so heavily built up that nothing ancient can be seen except two bridges of the 2d c. B.C. which once carried the Via Aurelia.
BIBLIOGRAPHYO. Toti, NSc (1961) 125-33; (1967) 55-86; P. Gazzola, Ponti romani (19-3) nos. 12, 141.
E. RICHARDSON