- Maria Anna De Lucia Brolli and Jacopo Tabolli –
time encouraging its birth (De Lucia Brolli 1995–96; De Lucia Brolli – Michetti
2005) (Fig. 14.13). The Roman conquest had an economic impact on the entire Faliscan
sector, also determined by the interrupted fl ow of production of ceramics on an industrial
scale, which were widely exported, and formed the basis of the economic fabric of the
Faliscan metropolis. After 241 bc the necessity of territorial control by Rome led to the
construction of two major roads, the Via Amerina (post 241 bc) and the Flaminia (220
bc); their paths excluded the original Falerii, while in the countryside, along new roads,
there developed villae rusticae which are recognized in areas of tile fragments. Almost
all the temples survived the Roman conquest, both in Falerii and its hinterland (Grotta
Porciosa), and in Narce (Monte Li Santi – Le Rote), which seem to have been completely
abandoned in a planned and programmed fashion around the end of the second-beginning
of the fi rst century bc (Benedettini, Carlucci, De Lucia Brolli 2005 and 2010).
ETRUSCANS AND FALISCANS: WHAT RELATIONSHIP?The geographical position of the Ager Faliscus, nerve center of communications in the
Middle Tiber Valley, creates a sub-region in close contact between the various peoples
of central Italy, with whom relations were also facilitated by their common gravitation
to the large artery of the River Tiber (Baglione 1986). Since the early Iron Age it had
demonstrated this phenomenon of social mobility that certainly favored the interface
between the different populations, resulting in similarities in the manifestations
of material culture and funeral ideology. In particular, the contiguity of the Faliscan
territory with that of the Capenates and the apparent similarities until a few years ago
resulted in the scientifi c literature using the term “Faliscan-Capenate” for the expressions
of Faliscan culture. It is only in recent decades that a clear ethnic-cultural demarcation has
been delineated between Faliscans and Capenates (most recently, Biella 2007 and 2012),
although not abandoned by all scholars (Camporeale 2005). Similarly, the Faliscans were
often juxtaposed to the Etruscans, with whom, as the sources tell us, they sometimes
shared their history repeatedly allying against Roman expansion. The political proximity
with the Etruscans is particularly pushed into prominence by the presence of Faliscans,
like that of the Capenates among the confederated peoples who annually gathered at the
Figure 14.13 Falerii novi.