Altinum

About

Altinum (in Altino, a frazione of Quarto d'Altino) was an ancient town of the Veneti 15 km southeast of modern Treviso, close to the mainland shore of the Lagoon of Venice. It was also close to the mouths of the rivers Dese, Zero and Sile. A flourishing port and trading centre during the Roman period, it was destroyed by Attila the Hun in 452. The town recovered, but was later abandoned when sea-borne sand began to cover it over. Its inhabitants moved to Torcello and other islands of the northern part of the lagoon. Today Altinum is an archaeological area and has a national archaeological museum.

Altinum was a Venetic settlement. The earliest human presence in the area is dated to the 10th century BCE and is related to hunter-gatherer groups. The earliest evidence of a settlement nucleus is dated from the mid-8th century to the mid-7th century BCE. In the 7th century BCE the settlement moved slightly to the northwest, in its historical location. A sacred area which is dated to the late 6th century BCE and developed in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE had votive offering objects from Greek, Magna Graecian, Etruscan and Celtic areas. This suggests that Altinum was the main port of the Veneti in the proto-historical age.

Archaeology indicates that in the late 6th/early 5th century BC, the Veneti had precocious contact with Celtic areas through the communication routes along the rivers Adige and Piave in the major centres in the plain of the River Po ( Este and Padua and the Adriatic ports such as Atria, modern Adria, and Altinum). There was a trading relationship between high-ranking families. There was a degree of intermarriage. Some Celts settled in the region. Celtic gift and fashion objects appear in the burials of important families.

In the early 4th century BCE, the Gauls invaded the plain of the Po as far as Verona. This led to a gradual ethnic mixing and loss of cultural identity, especially in the border areas of the Veneti: Verona in the west and the Lagoon of Venice and the Piave valley in the east. In some places there was at times a transition from the traditional practice of cremation to inhumation and the deposition of weapons in burials, which was an exception to Veneti funerary culture. An example of this was found in a cemetery in Altinum. Such evidence suggests that inter-ethnic relations went beyond just trade and that there were clusters of foreign settlers. Perhaps they were traders, workers and/or mercenaries.

Strabo gave indications of the social, economic and ritual importance of horses and horse breeding among the pre-Roman Veneti. He wrote that they bestowed attention on horse rearing, "which, though now entirely abandoned, was formerly in great esteem among them, resulting from the ancient rage for breeding mules, which Homer thus mentions: "From the [Ve]neti for forest mules renowned." It was here that Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, kept his stud of race-horses. And, in consequence, the [Veneti] horses were much esteemed in Greece, and their breed in great repute for a long period." (Homer actually wrote "whence is the race of wild mules." Iliad II. 857) Strabo also noted that the Veneti paid honour to Diomedes by sacrificing a white horse.

In Altinum there was a large number of horses buried in a sacrificial pit at the town's sanctuary and in the cemetery area to the north of the town. In the latter there were some thirty horses, whereas in other Veneti towns there were only a few, except for a cemetery exclusively devoted to some thirty horses to the south of Este. These burials are dated to the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. Evidence of sacrifice at the sanctuary continues into the Roman imperial period. Here the remains of some twenty horses were found alongside those of bovines, sheep, goats and pigs. The ritual offerings were the heads or parts of hindlegs or tails which were disarticulated, skinned and fleshed. Sketches of headless horses or body parts confirm this animal's key role in religious cults.

Archaeological finds indicate that Altinum's perimeter was marked by waterways beyond which there were cemetery areas. The abundance of watercourses gives the picture of a town deeply tied to water, which was characteristic of towns in the Veneto. The transformation of Altinum from a Veneti to a Roman town started with the reorganisation of its marshy environment through the regulation of its waters and the expansion of its canal network. The main work was the digging of the Silocello canal to link the River Sile (which was to the north of the town) to the channel, which today is called Santa Maria and which flowed to the south of the town from the River Dese to the lagoon. The most important architectural finds are a town gate on the canal which marked the northern edge of the town, another public building which faced the canal which marked the southern edge of the town, and a temple close to the Santa Maria channel which was restructured in a monumental form from a 5th-century BCE wooden structure. (See the "Port and canals" section for Altinum's canals)

In 225 BCE the Veneti and Romans established an alliance treaty in the run-up to the Battle of Telamon between Rome and an alliance between the Insubres and Boii Gallic tribes of northern Italy and Gaesatae mercenaries. The foundation of the colony of Aquileia, in Celtic territory, as a fortress to protect northern Italy from invasions from the northeast and east was an important moment in the process of Romanisation of the Veneti and Altinum, which is traceable to the first half of the 2nd century BCE. Altinum came to be a half-way port and stopover between Ravenna and the new and important colony. Its port grew in size. This was also due to the Romans promoting sea trade in the upper Adriatic Sea.

The process of Romanisation was in part driven by the presence of Roman, Latin and Italic merchants attracted to this port by lucrative trade. Inscriptions attest to an early presence of the Publicia, Barbia, Cossutia and Saufeia families in Aquileia and Virunum (modern Magdalensberg ), a town in Noricum (in present-day Austria ) where there was iron mining. These were families of equestrian rank (the Roman entrepreneurial class). They went to Aquileia from central Italy, and from there they spread to the northern markets, including Altinum.

Sometime between 153 and 131 BCE, the Via Annia was built. It connected Atria (modern Adria ) to Aquileia. It passed through Patavium ( Padua ) and then it ran close to the coast and passed through Altinum. In 131 BC the Via Popilia, which connected Ariminum (modern Rimini ), Ravenna and Atria, was built. Thus, Altinum came to be connected overland to these important towns, facilitating the movement of goods. Again, its port increased in importance. Its inhabitants were granted Latin rights, a limited form of Roman citizenship, in 89 BCE, and in the last decades of the Roman Republic, in 49 BCE, they acquired full Roman citizenship and were assigned to the Scaptia Roman tribe. The town became a municipium, probably in 42–40 BCE.

Velleius Paterculus wrote that in the run-up to the final civil war of the Roman Republic (32–30 BCE) between Octavian (later known as emperor Augustus ) and Mark Antony, Gaius Asinius Pollio kept Venetia under Mark Antony's control for a long time with his seven legions and accomplished brilliant things near Altinum and other towns in the region. He then joined Mark Antony. This was in 42–40 BCE. Pollio Asinius was either the last governor of the Venetia region of Roman Italy or a member of a commission charged with distributing land to war veterans. With his legions, he was able to give the towns in Venetia administrative autonomy by giving them the status of municipia without much trouble. It is likely that by saying that Asinius Pollio accomplished brilliant things ("magnis speciosisque rebus"), Velleius Paterculus was referring to Asinius allocating land to veterans near Altinum and Patavium and founding the colony of Iula Concordia (modern Oderzo ) which Julius Caesar had probably planned but not accomplished.

Sometime between 31 and 12 BCE, Octavian established Ravenna's harbour as one of the home ports for his new navy. It became one of the main Roman military ports, and this favoured Altinum, as it increased the importance of the upper Adriatic Sea.

The town benefited from infrastructure commissioned by the emperor Claudius. In 46 CE he opened a branch of the Via Claudia Augusta from Altinum to Tridentum (today's Trento ) in the Italian Alps. Drusus had started its construction in 15 AD. It connected Hostiglia (today's Ostiglia ), on the River Po, to the " limes " at the Danube in southern Germany via Tridentum. Claudius also built a road along the coast which connected Altinum to Atria directly. He also extended the navigable route inside the Septem Maria lagoons, to Altinum with the construction of a further canal, the fossa Clodia, thus connecting it to Ravenna. Although this internal route only allowed navigation by smaller vessels, it guaranteed communication even through the worst weather. This enhanced Altinum's strategic and commercial importance as a hub for trade between the Mediterranean Sea, northeastern Italy and beyond the Alps.

During the civil wars which followed the death of the emperor Nero (see Year of the Four Emperors, 69 AD), Marcus Antonius Primus, who supported Vespasian 's bid to depose Vitellius, advanced into Italy with his troops. Tacitus wrote that he occupied Aquileia and then he was "received with joy" at Opitergium ( Oderzo ) and Altinum and that a military contingent was left in Altinum in case of an attack by the fleet in Ravenna.

In 169, during the Marcomannic Wars (166–180 AD) the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus were returning to Rome from the front in Pannonia. Lucius Verus was said to have been hit by apoplexy near Altinum. He got off his carriage bleeding and was taken to Altinum, where he died after three days of not being able to speak. Some modern scholars believe that he may have been a victim of the Antonine Plague.

By the 4th century CE, Altinum became the seat of a bishopric. The first bishop was Heliodorus of Altino (died c. 410), He accompanied St Jerome on his first trip to the East. When he returned, he became the bishop of Altinum and attended the 381 CE anti- Arian Council of Aquileia in that capacity. Saint Jerome wrote letters to Heliodorus and his nephew Nepotianus, a priest. In a consolatory letter written to Heliodorus when Nepotianus died in 396, he mentioned that Altinum had many churches and martyr shrines and that the Nepotianus presbytery was adorned with flowers of all types, twigs and vine leaves. The cathedral (built by 381) had two entrances shaded by curtains. It had an altar, shiny floors, walls which were not covered by smoke, and an ancillary space related to the sacristy. St Jerome described Altinum as "a populous centre whose buildings were close to each other and many hearths which darkened the air with thick smog." Today Altinum is no longer a residential diocese. It is listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

The apex of Altinum's flourishing period was from the 1st century BCE to the 2nd century CE. Its size was comparable to that of Pompeii. A decrease in archaeological finds suggests that after this, Altinum, like the other towns in the Veneto region, began to decline. However, it retained a prominent role.

The Codex Theodosianus (Theodosian Code), a compilation of Roman laws under the Christian emperors from 312 to the 430s, was commissioned by Theodosius II and Valentinian III in 429 and published in 438. It records sixteen laws that were issued by emperors in Altinum, especially between 364 and 399. It also provides evidence that emperors in the second half of the 4th century often stayed in this town and that the imperial chancellery regularly worked there between 364 and 406. An early 5th-century revision of the Tabula Peutingeriana, an illustrated itinerarium of the Roman Empire, had a symbol depicting Altinum as a town with two towers, which represented it as an important and populous town.

Altinum and other towns and villages in the region were destroyed in 452 by Attila the Hun. According to the Chronicon Venetum et Gradense, the earliest Venetian chronicle, written by John the Deacon in the mid-10th and early 11th-century, refugees from Altinum fled to Torcello and other islands in the northern part of the Lagoon of Venice. Some of the inhabitants of these islands moved to the island group of Rivo Alto, in the central part of the lagoon, 450–500 years later and contributed to the development of a new city, Venice. Thus, according to the tradition, which is still deeply ingrained, the origins of Venice are related to the destruction of Altinum by Attila, its demise, and the refugees who fled from this town. The invasion of northern Italy by the Lombards in 568, which spared the lagoons of the northwestern coast of Italy, which were under Byzantine influence, has also been held responsible for this demise. The implicit assumption is that this gave a final blow to the remnants of the town. However, archaeological investigations have disproved this notion. Although Attila's actions may well have further contributed to the decline of the town, Altinum overcame this and continued to exist for several centuries.

The features of the coast of northeastern Italy were changing. The Altinum area slowly became covered by sand brought by the sea, which turned into mud, starting from the Roman imperial period. Generally, the inland Roman towns, from Grado to Ravenna, were becoming less and less suited as ports. There was a shift from single ports controlled by the imperial authorities to peripheral ports in satellite areas along new river routes most probably controlled by new investors and ship owners. Trade moved these places. In the case of Altinum, it moved to Torcello, which was on a fluvial channel through the lagoon which led to the open sea. Archaeological excavations in the inland towns and the lagoons have not revealed any sudden population movements and sharp population increases in the satellite ports or in Torcello as could be expected with an influx of refugees. The finds show that there was a gradual colonisation of the lagoons, a slow shift over centuries which had already started in the Roman days.