San Benedetto dei Marsi ( la, Marruvium, ; grc, Μαρούϊον, translit=Maroúïon) is a ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

''and

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

in the province of L'Aquila in the

Abruzzo , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1 ...

region of central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is on the eastern shore of the dried Lake Fucino, from the remains of another ancient site, Alba Fucens. Near the town is the stream Giovenco, identified as the ancient stream known as ''Pitonius''.

History

The ancient ''Marruvium ''was the chief city of the Italic tribe of the

Marsi The Marsi were an Italic people of ancient Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus (which was drained for agricultural land in the late 19th century). The area in which they lived is now called Marsica. D ...

; ''Marruvii ''or ''Marrubii '' is another form of the name of the Marsi, and was used by

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

as an ethnic appellation. In accordance with this, Silius Italicus also describes Marruvium as deriving its name from a certain Marrus, who is evidently only an eponymous hero of the Marsi. There is no account of Marruvium, however, previous to the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

conquest of the Marsic territory; but under the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

it was a flourishing municipal town; it is noticed as such both by

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

and Pliny, and in inscriptions we find it called "splendidissima civitas Marsorum Marruvium". It was also called Civitas Marsorum, and, in the Middle Ages, Civitas Marsicana. It is noticed in the Tabula Peutingeriana, which places it 13 Roman miles from Alba; but it was not situated on the Via Valeria, and must have communicated with that high-road by a branch from Cerfennia. The town was an episcopal see in the Middle Ages, being destroyed in 1340 during the Angevine wars for the conquest of the

Kingdom of Naples The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...

. In 1580 the see was moved to the neighboring town of Pescina.

Main sights

Considerable ruins of the ancient city still remain, including portions of its walls and the remains of an

amphitheatre An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...

, and numerous inscriptions, as well as statues, have been discovered on the site. These ruins are situated close to the margin of the lake, about below Pescina.Holsten. ad Cluver. p. 151; Romanelli, vol. iii. p. 180-186; Kramer, ''Fuciner See'', p. 55; Hoare's ''Class. Tour'', vol. i. pp. 357–361. The inscriptions are collected by Mommsen, ''I. R. N.'' pp. 290–294.

History

Main sights

People

References

Sources

External links