- chapter 15: Etruria on the Po and the Adriatic Sea –
Figure 15.7 Cippi from Rubiera (Reggio Emilia) (Soprintendenza per i Beni
Archeologici dell’Emilia Romagna).During the sixth century, following the radical economic and commercial transformations
affecting the whole territory of Etruria Padana, Bologna will capture the signs of a
general restructuring that leads to full development in an urban sense. The city is now
equipped with houses with stone foundations and roofs of clay tiles, and a genuine arx-
type elevated Etruscan acropolis with a temple building and carved cippi of travertine and
marble, also intended to hold offerings, among which stand out two bronze statuettes
of Hercules with the apples of the Hesperides and of Apollo as lyre player, testimony of
the cults that were practiced (Fig. 15.8). From the arx the eye could embrace the whole
urban area, the necropolis and much of the chora (adjacent farmland); the arx is perfectly
suited to the function of auguraculum, i.e. “ritual observatory,” where the augur could
conduct the rites of foundation in relation to a quadripartition oriented in space that
transformed the city into a templum, according to the prescribed Etruscan discipline.
As in the previous stage, we know very little about the structure and organization
of the town, already destroyed by the Romans and buried beneath the medieval and
modern city. The necropoleis, however, provide important evidence of the new urban
organization and especially the economic, social and political characteristics of the civic
community. The tombs are still arranged along the route of the access roads to the city.
In the greater funeral sector, the Certosa site to the west, several important projects
of monumental character have been documented, such as the construction of a large,
15-meter wide road, a very old track that is now paved with pebbles and side drains,
creating a large public work commissioned by the whole city community. On either side
of the street the richest and most important tombs were prepared, indicated by above
ground monumental stone markers, which constitute the most distinctive peculiarities
of Felsina of the fi fth century bc.