- Giuseppe Sassatelli and Elisabetta Govi –
settlements changed rapidly. According to Livy (33.37.3–4) Bologna, which he continues
to call Felsina, in addition to being qualifi ed as an urbs (“city”) in homage to its fully
urban Etruscan past, is sometimes also referred to as oppidum (“fortifi ed town”), surely a
result of the dismantling by the Gauls. The organization of the territory is no longer “by
city,” as in the previous Etruscan phase, but by “vici,” i.e. lowland settlements related
to agricultural production, or by “castella,” settlements on high ground with distinct
functions, including military, of supervision and control of the land and of the new routes
of communication. With this radical transformation, the Gauls themselves intended
to become the main intermediary between the Mediterranean and continental Europe,
taking over from the Etruscans. For this purpose, new trade routes were activated, more
to the east and more aimed at the Romagna region, emptying the Etruscan cities of
Bologna and Marzabotto of their historical role and depriving them of their economic
function, instead lending great strength and importance to new settlements like the
Celtic town of Monte Bibele (Monterenzio) (Fig. 15.23).
Only Mantua and Spina survived this upheaval, the fi rst because of its strategic
position, the second because it was decentralized and surrounded by marshes and dunes.
Spina became a collection point for many Etruscans of the Po region who fl ed after the
Gallic onslaught, and who devoted themselves to trade and piracy on the Adriatic Sea.
The continuity of Etruscan presence on the sea is not just at Spina, but covers a wide
coastal strip running from Adria to Ravenna, where there is massive importation of
Etruscan ceramics (from Volterra, but also from other centers of northern and interior
Etruria) and, to a lesser extent, of goods from Magna Graecia and Sicily, if we think of the
“Greco-Italic” amphorae. Here there is also a signifi cant local production of pottery and
ceramics both fi gured and undecorated, most notably those of “Upper-Adriatic” type, a
typical production of the Etruscans of the northern Adriatic, perhaps also aided by the
arrival of artists from interior Etruria and from the Ager Faliscus (“Faliscan territory,” see
Chapter 14).
The economic vitality of this Adriatic coast and especially of Spina at this late stage
is also evidenced by epigraphic documentation at Spina, where Veneti, Italic groups,
Faliscans, Messapians and also Gauls resided. The piracy of the Etruscans of the Po
region is perhaps the reason for the famous Athenian decree of 325–324 bc, relating to a
Figure 15.23 Tomb at Monterenzio (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Emilia Romagna).