Sena Gallica
A settlement of the Galli Senoni in the 4th c. at the mouth of the Misa river above an alluvial plain at the center of a coastal lagoon depression. After the battle of Sentino (295 B.C.), the Romans made it a jurisdictional colony (Polyb. 2.19.12; Livy Per. 11, 27.38.4), which the sources mention particularly in connection with the battle of Metaurus in 207 B.C. (Cic. Brut. 18.73; Liv. 27.46.4; Sil. 15.552; App. Hann. 52; Eutr. 3.18.2; Oros. 4.18.3; Zonar. 9.9). In 82 B.C., the city was sacked by Pompey in his struggle with the followers of Marius (App. BCiv. 1.87-88). It was an Early Christian diocesan seat. In A.D. 551, it was a Byzantine naval base during the Gothic war (Procop. Goth. 6.23) and subsequently became part of the Pentapolis. Two roads ended here: the Adriatic coastal road (It. Ant. 100, 316; Tab. Peut.; Rav. Cosm. 4.31; 5.1) and a branch of the Via Flaminia coming from Cagli (It. Ant. 315-16; CIL XI, 2, p. 997).
The remaining Roman works are limited to the ruins of a tower and of a stretch of the circuit walls toward the sea, today contained in the Renaissance la Rocca. The ancient urban plan was square with its N angle blunted (to adapt to the area of the alluvial plain) and oriented according to the coastline. In the modern Via Arsilli the cardo maximus may be recognized and the decumanus maximus in the Renaissance Strada Grande (today a part of Via 2 Giugno). The forum is in the Piazza Roma.
BIBLIOGRAPHYCIL XI, p. 922; Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, II, 385; F. Lanzoni, Le diocesi d'ltalia (1927) 492-93; N. Alfieri, “Topografia della battaglia del Metauro,” Rend. Ist. Marchigiano di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 15-16 (1939-40) 93; id., “I fiumi adriatici delle regioni augustee V e VI,” Athenaeum 27 (1949) 128; A. Baviera, “Alcune memorie dell'epoca romana a Senigallia,” Nel bimillenario della nascita d'Augusto (1948) 42-52; M. Ortolani & N. Alfieri, “Sena Gallica,” RendLinc 8, 8 (1953) 152-80.
N. ALFIERI