- chapter 15: Etruria on the Po and the Adriatic Sea –
The site of Spina (near present-day Comacchio) was not far from the sea in ancient times.
It stood in a hostile environment in terms of climate, made diffi cult due to constant tidal
fl ooding. The enormous efforts to control the waters and counter the gradual silting of the
harbour make clear the importance of the emporium of Spina in relation to the network of
trade affecting the whole of Etruria Padana. Of the city and its internal organization we
know little, but we are familiar with wooden structures and pilings used both to strengthen
the ground and to raise the living fl oors above the water level (Fig. 15.20). So far the only
area of the town that has been discovered has an area of 5–6 hectares and corresponds to a
naturally elevated expanse, like an island emerging from the surrounding lagoon. There
must surely have been other islands of this kind forming the city of Spina, which has a very
large number of tombs (over 4,000) and which in Antiquity must have played a major role,
if it was permitted to erect a “thesauròs” (treasury) in the sanctuary at Delphi. The houses
discovered to date have a regular structure made of wood, including the superstructure (the
use of tiles for the roofs seems to arrive here very late). The urban plan shows characteristics
of regularity like the larger cities of the Etruscan Po region, from Marzabotto to Bologna,
and even the origin of Spina probably involved a foundation ritual, witnessed by a stone
marker with the crux and inscribed “mi tular” (“I [am] the border”), such as is documented
precisely at Marzabotto (Fig. 15.21). The town, probably with regular houses and canals,
was also equipped with a large artifi cial canal built by the Etruscans to enable connection
to the sea, cutting through all the coastal dunes and ensuring the arrival of Greek goods at
the docks of Spina then to be redistributed to the rest of Etruria Padana.
The archaeological evidence of Spina, so limited as regards the town, is rather
extraordinary for the burial grounds discovered in the last century; the sites of Valle
Trebba and Valle Pega, where thousands of graves and associated funerary objects are
the most lively and most vital signs of trade and of the relations that this Etruscan city
had with Athens in particular. One of the most common types of goods was, in fact, the
Attic pottery conveyed to Etruscan Spina, and not only the practice of the symposium
now assimilated by the Etruscans, but also mythological themes and epics, and more
generally the image of the society and culture of Athens of the fi fth century bc (Fig.
15.22). The epithet of “Greek city” (polis hellenìs) that is given to Spina by Strabo and by
the Pseudo Scylax, however, should not be understood in the ethnic sense but refers to its
full commercial accessibility for the Greeks who in this emporion could be welcomed and
speak their own language.
Figure 15.20 Palisade/embankment of Spina (Soprintendenza per i Beni
Archeologici dell’Emilia Romagna)