The debate on fortifications and their importance for the study of wider socio-political developments such as the formation and foundation of cities has been particularly rich and lively in the last few decades and more specifically in the last few years especially thanks to the initiative of German scholars (see e.g. S. Müth, P. Schneider, M. Schnelle, P. De Staebler [edd.], Ancient Fortifications [2016]; R. Frederiksen, S. Müth, P. Schneider, M. Schnelle, Focus on Fortifications [2016]; and A. Ballmer, M. Fernandez-Götz, P. Dirk, D.P. Mielke, Understanding Ancient Fortifications [forthcoming]). The book by F. and H. contributes to this debate with an important volume on Archaic fortifications in Latium vetus and southern Etruria between the ninth and sixth centuries bc.
The book comprises an introduction by the editors and fourteen articles, offered at a Workshop held at the Academia Belgica in Rome (19–20 September 2013). The collection of papers is an important contribution to the current debate on fortifications and urbanisation in the Mediterranean and beyond, both in terms of new data, specifically on the Latin and Etruscan area, and also in terms of the wider theoretical framework focusing on fortifications to improve understanding of the construction and representation of the identities of communities in the development of emerging cities.
In the introduction the editors pose important questions, such as the critical evaluation of early Iron Age fortifications in the Etruscan and Latin area in relation to later monumentalised city-walls of the Archaic period, the influence of Greek and/or Oriental models on local monuments and the regional variation and/or the precocity of certain regions in comparison with others (p. 16). These are all important questions, and this book provides both the data and the theoretical framework to engage in this debate, although some of these important themes remain only posed and not fully developed.
The new excavations and the revisiting of old excavations presented in the volume, for example, confirm that in the Latin and southern Etruscan area earthen wall fortifications appear quite early. In their introduction F. and H. say that ‘the time of the first urban fortifications in the Latin and Etruscan area has to be dated back by at least two centuries: from the 6th to the 8th century bc or even the 9th, and according to different cases even further’ (p. 16). I would emphasise the importance of these ‘different cases’ and say that fortification in the Latin and Etruscan area dates to at least the end of the Final Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age.
This is the case for the first fortification of the most exposed side of the Veii plateau, in the Campetti area, which dates to the Final Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age, and was made of alternate layers of soil and irregular tuff blocks. Along the inside of the fortification (rather than the outside, as would have been expected) there was a deep V-shaped channel, which almost immediately went out of use. This channel, according to the excavators, might have had more of a symbolic and religious function, such as a foundation channel, rather than a practical function (F. Boitani et al., p. 29).
During the earliest phase of the Early Iron Age (Veio IA) a wooden structure was built in relation to this fortification. The function of this structure (porch?) is not fully clear, but it is certainly functional to the fortification and is linked by the excavators to similar wooden posts found in relation to earthen fortification walls in Colle Rotondo (also dated to the Final Bronze Age/beginning of the Early Iron Age, G. Cifani and A. Guidi, pp. 111ff.) and at the northern slope of the Palatine (mid-eighth century bc). Similarly, the earliest phase of the Aggere fortification of Laurentina Acqua Acetosa is also dated by new studies of the material to the Final Bronze Age (eleventh century bc), with an apparent cesura and a new development from the beginning of the ninth century bc (A. Bedini, p. 146). Finally, a very early date, probably the ninth century bc, is suggested for the first fortification of the acropolis of Gabii (made of a tuff blocks foundation and an earthen elevation), on the basis of stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of a wooden post (H., pp. 95–8).
As I have also emphasised in my work on the urbanisation of Rome and Latium vetus (F. Fulminante, The Urbanization of Rome and Latium vetus from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Era [2014]), an important moment in the development of fortification structures in Latium and southern Etruria seems to be the eighth–seventh centuries bc, when, in parallel to other signs of urbanisation such as special regal residencies and buildings (e.g. in Rome, Tarquinia and Gabii; see A. Carandini, Roma, il primo giorno [2007], M. Bonghi Jovino, ‘The Tarquinia Project: a Summary of 25 Years of Excavation’, AJA 114 [2010], 161–80, and M. Fabbri/S. Musco, pp. 81–2), the creation of communal political spaces (early phases of the Forum Romanum) and cult places (e.g. A. Guidi, ‘L'importanza dei luoghi di culto nella formazione delle città medio-tirreniche’, in M. Angle and A. Germano [edd.], Museo e Territorio. Atti della III giornata di studi, Velletri 7–8 Marzo 2003 [2004], pp. 127–30), many existing fortifications attest a new building phase, or new fortifications are built around settlements. In Veii, for example, in the Campetti area, towards the end of the Early Iron Age and the Early Orientalising Period (Veio IIB–IIIA), on the obliteration of the first fortification a metal furnace is built, and to the west a new fortification wall is re-built with a different technique, attested only by the internal front of tuff blocks laid out to form big steps. At this level on the same alignment of the V-shaped channel a new small channel is dug, which, similarly to the earlier one, seems to have had an important symbolic meaning (Boitani et al., p. 30).
In Gabii a second fortification on the Acropolis of the Aggere type has been excavated by H. and dated to the eighth century bc (pp. 95ff.), while Fabbri and Musco date a section of the settlement fortification on the north-eastern slope to at least the seventh century bc (pp. 72ff.). In relation to Gabii, the integration of these two articles is not clear, and the opinions of H. and Fabbri/Musco seem to differ on the dating of the larger fortification of the settlement. Among the sites included in this volume, Ficana also had an eighth-century earthen work rampant fortification (T. Fischer-Hansen, pp. 183ff.; and possibly another one in the late seventh–early sixth century bc, pp. 196ff.), and possibly Anzio (Cifani and Guidi, pp. 121ff.).
The new research by Tübingen University and Paris CNRS on the site of Castellina del Marangone (Comune S. Marinella, Rome) has revealed an early phase of the fortification walls, made of earth and tuff blocks and dated at least to the end of the seventh century bc (F., pp. 57ff.). Similarly, the earliest phase of the urban fortification of Lavinium, variably dated to the seventh or early sixth century bc, could possibly be dated to the mid-seventh century bc and is suggestively connected by A. Jaia to the eminent figure buried under the Heroon and possibly identified with the founder of the city (p. 204). The earthen fortification walls seen by Castagnoli in 1956 at Satricum could also be dated to the early sixth century bc (M. Gnade, pp. 214ff.) or possibly late seventh century bc for its relation to Tumulus C (775/750–620/610 bc).
As partially hinted in the introduction of the volume, the various contributions clearly show that by the sixth–fifth centuries bc most settlements in Latium vetus and southern Etruria were equipped with squared tuff block walls, which provided a new monumental appearance to most cities and settlements: among the sites considered in this volume, Veio (Boitani et al., pp. 27ff.), Gabii (Fabbri and Musco, pp. 80–1, and H., pp. 99ff.), Colle Rotondo, Anzio (Cifani and Guidi, pp. 114ff.), Collatia (A. De Santis and Musco, pp. 125ff.) and Lavinium (Jaia, pp. 203ff.). With particular reference to this period the squared tuff block walls around the citadel of Piazza D'Armi in Veio, generally dated to the sixth century bc, have been assigned by new excavations to the medieval period (ninth–eleventh centuries ad, G. Bartoloni and L. Pulcinelli, pp. 41ff.). Finally in the late fifth and fourth centuries bc it is probably possible to detect another phase of construction and/or re-construction of walls related to the expansion of Rome, the conflicts of the Latin war and the foundation of new Latin colonies. At the same time, polygonal calcareous block walls start to appear in southern Latium (S. Gatti and D. Palombi, pp. 243ff.).
As suggested by Guidi, H., F. and Boitani in their contributions, and also implied by other authors, the most important construction or re-construction of fortifications in Latium vetus and southern Etruria always happened in relation to important socio-political changes and developments in the history of those settlements. This is confirmed by the comparative perspective introduced by R. Frederiksen on Greece and M. Fernández-Gotz and D. Krausse on Central Europe. In particular, with his brief review of fortifications in Greece, Frederiksen emphasises how, while Archaic and Classical Greece show an explosion of cities and city-walls, fortifications in Greece dating to the Early Iron Age are not so few as previously thought and early stages of urbanisation can be dated in the region as early as the mid-eighth century bc, in parallel to middle Tyrrhenian Italy (Frederiksen, pp. 253ff. and 261ff.). Similarly Fernández-Gotz shows the importance of fortifications for the construction and maintenance of community identity in Central Europe between the seventh and the fifth centuries bc, both in urban settings such as Heuneburg and Mont Lassois and also in religious places such as the Glauberg. In particular, it is especially interesting that at Mont Lassois, beneath the Late Hallstatt period bank, a Late Bronze Age timber box wall (Holzkastenmauer) has been discovered and dated to the ninth century bc (Fernández-Gotz and Krausse, p. 280).
If the connection of the fortification at Colle Rotondo and possibly other sites in central and northern Italy with this technique and with central European and Atlantic Europe fortifications will be confirmed, maybe it will be possible to investigate further connections between craftsmanship of Eastern and Western Mediterranean and Continental Europe, in which central Italy seems to be a central node of transmission.
To conclude, the book by F. and H. is an important contribution both in terms of new data and theoretical framework, which has the potential to answer fundamental historical questions on the development of early cities and the relationship between eastern and Western Mediterranean people especially if set up within a more comprehensive study of fortifications in the whole Italian peninsula with a long-term perspective.
