Travels Through Sabine Lands
Travelogue, or memoirs of a visit to Sabinium that I was lucky enough to undertake in the first week of July 2008.
| Dies I
Summer holidays have finally arrived. It was time to follow the example of the luckier ancient Romans when the Urbs got too hot : go out to the hills ! Destination : Interamna Nahars -- modern-day Terni. |
 Sabine hillside, July 2008
The ancient town, as its name indicates, sat between two streams (inter / between ; amnis / stream). One of them, the Nar -- modern-day Nera -- formed the boundary between Umbria (Regio VI in Augustan times) on the west bank, and Sabinium on the east bank. The epithet Nahars, as I was told by a tourist guide, comes from the name of an Italic tribe that lived along the Nar River before the Romans arrived. An inscription from the first century C.E. mentions the year of the founding of the city : 672 B.C.E. Archaeological evidence has shown that the site was inhabited for at least a millenium before the rise of Augustus, and the local museum of antiquities has quite a number of artefacts from the late Bronze and early Iron Age.
After a whole day travelling in sauna-like conditions under a merciless sun, I reached my lodgings around the first hour of night. I did what any sensible Roman would have done : headed straight for the bath, cold water taps only ! The Ancients were right, there is no better way to recover from hours of extreme heat than a visit to the frigidarium at the nearest thermae. By the time I had changed into clean clothes it was cool enough to take a leisurely stroll around the town before having a late cena.
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opus reticulatum
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There was a play scheduled for the third hour of night in the theatrum. Not being interested, I nevertheless took a seat for a while and watched the stage being prepared. Interamna received the status of municipium after the Civil Wars. |
Theatrum in Interamna Nahars
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| Later, sometime during the reign of Tiberius, it built itself this new theatre. It was constructed according to the traditional opus reticulatum method ; that is, squared blocks of stone are inserted into Roman concrete at an angle, the lines of visible concrete between the stones giving the impression of a rete (net). |
| The theatre hosted venationes, mock naval battles and of course gladiator games. Romans on holiday and local citizens could therefore enjoy Roman entertainments away from the crowds of the big city.
As the seats began filling with spectators, I slipped out and found a taberna featuring ordinary Italian cuisine. One thing, thankfully, hasn’t changed : the price of a good meal in the countryside is half of what it is in Rome. I fell asleep that night in a very good mood. |
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| Dies II
Ante Meridies |
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| Early morning was the best time to set out for a hike in the countryside. I left the town through the east gate which opens onto the road connecting Interamna with Reate, the Via Curia, so named after Manius Curius Dentatus who had it built. |
| In just over an hour’s time I was basking in the fresh air under deep blue skies in the Sabine hills. Vineyards and olive groves followed one after another on gentle slopes. Farming estates were quite large, none less than 25 iugera. I wondered whether they were still owned by ancient Roman families.
By the fourth hour of day it had already grown |
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| uncomfortably hot. The few people I passed on the footpath somehow didn’t seem to mind the heat at all. I paused and took shelter under some trees next to an old abandoned mill. It straddled a narrow strip of the Avens – present-day Velino – River (above). An historical notice explained that the mill had been used to grind locally grown wheat and rye into flour for bread. For some reason, its owners had let the mill fall into ruin. Even here, in the shade, the heat was harsh. Watching the locals toiling in their fields and wondering how they could stand being in the sun, it suddenly dawned on me that all the men were shirtless. I instantly decided to join the ranks : I peeled off my shirt and threw it in my bag. “When in Sabinium, do as the Sabines do !”
I finished my hike without succumbing to heat stroke. One of the gods even helped out, sort of. A solitary black cloud appeared in the sky, sailed over to where I was walking and let down a cool drizzle. Annoyed at first, I ran a few metres to where there was no precipitation, but the cloud followed me ! This strange comedy lasted for about 20 minutes before the cloud just disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. I was thankful for the break from the intense heat, and for not having been completely soaked. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder : was it some unknown Sabine deity alerting me that I was trespassing on holy ground ?
Post Meridies
Back in Interamna, I headed for the Archaeological Museum. It is located within a walled compound. Not only was it open (as advertised in its brochure) but for the two hours I spent in its seven air-conditioned rooms, I had the privilege of being the sole visitor. The ticket is valid for a whole year and gives acces to other museums in and around Terni. Not a bad incentive to return before next summer !
The museum features objects unearthed in town or nearby. Many of them were found in gravesites : weapons from nine centuries before Augustus, fragments of statuary from the Republican and Imperial eras. There are also explanatory panels in Italian and English. I didn’t see anything that I would call exquisite, but for a small community off the main tourist circuits, Interamna can be justly proud of its artefacts showing a history of uninterrupted human occupation spanning 2900 years if not more.
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Iron Age weapons |
detail, Roman sarcophagus |
Roman sculpture |
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Dies III
After savouring a marvellously silent night’s sleep (Rome is a noisy city day and night) I set out by the same Via Curia to the town of Reate -- modern-day Rieti. On the way I passed the Basilica of Saint Valentine, a bishop of Terni martyred in the second half of the third century. The church stands only a few kilometres outside Terni with its adjacent cemetery in which the martyr was laid to rest and to which lovers and other devout Christians make pilgrimages.
The road passes through a fertile plain which in pre-Roman times was covered by a vast lake. M. Curius Dentatus drained a substantial portion of the lake, thus greatly increasing the ager Reatinus. He then had a road built, not a simple affair, considering that flooding occurred not infrequently, causing the road to sink into the mud. His work counts as a masterpiece of engineering, for travellers have been using his road continuously for two thousand two hundred and eighty years.
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Rieti, unlike Terni, is built on hills. Several streets in the old town centre are in fact flights of steps. Like Terni, it has an archaeological museum. It is however only open on a part-time basis. There again, I was the sole visitor. Though its collection of antiquities is smaller than that of Terni, I found it well worth the visit. I particularly appreciated the sensuous curves of a Roman funerary urn, funerary stele motifs, and the partially disfigured head of -- whom ? Surely a goddess ! I fancied it was Vacuna, or perhaps the Sabine divinity of the Lake of Floating Islands. |
detail, Roman funerary stele |
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 But antiquities may be seen outside the museum as well, for instance in the fountain of the main square in front of the Palazzo Vincentini, now Rieti’s City Hall. A meeting room on the ground floor of that Palazzo houses some mono-chromatic frescoes of the town’s two principal celebrities, Terentius Varro and Vespasian. On the ceiling, the same artist painted Sabine landscapes and four medallions depicting Sabine legends. They are : the Rape of the Sabine Women, a sacrifice to Rhea, another to Saturn, and a ver sacrum (left). While the first story is universally known, I have no idea to what legends the other three medallions refer. |
| Next stop : the south end of the city, for the Roman bridge across the Avens. All that remains is a heap of ruined blocks half submerged in the river. A few hundred metres further is the better-preserved Roman Gate through which the Via Salaria entered Reate. Then it was back to the northern edge of town, near the great medieval walls, where a bronze statue of Varro sits contemplating the mad mad world around him.
By the time I returned to my lodgings in Terni, my skin had darkened considerably and my feet were killing me. Where was the masseur ? There wasn’t one ! Instead, I had another cool bath before a leisurely evening meal. |
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Dies IIII
A friend in Rome who loves the Sabine country well had expressed a desire to know my opinion on the great waterfall created nearly 2300 years ago by the Roman consul M. Curius Dentatus, so this day of my Sabine tour was devoted to the Cascate di Marmore. I found a man to take me to the top of the Falls from which, he assured me, it was an easy and worthwhile trek down to the level of the Nar. |
| Having never visited this part of Italy before, I was completely unprepared for what I discovered : a breath-taking vision of beauty, and of a force of nature. Only minutes after entering a wooded park, I heard the roar of mighty waters. It took another fifteen minutes before I beheld the source of that noise. |
 Waterfall engineered by M. Curius Dentatus, 290 B.C.E. |
| It was love at first sight. I spent hours contemplating the Falls from every possible angle. To think that these are the highest waterfalls in Europe ; how had I not ever come here before ? Visit my property in Reate, the Cataracta Curia, to get an idea of the impression that place left me with.
As I headed back to my hotel to leave Terni, the images of the waterfall stayed with me, cooling me and softening the pain I felt at having to leave so soon. From now on, I wouldn’t ever again consider stopping in Rome without making time to spend a few hours at the Cascate di Marmore. Mauricius Fabius
All photographs are Copyright of the author. Special thanks to M. F. Furius for help with the ver sacrum photograph. |
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Domus
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Featured August 11 , 2008
