ICTIMU´LI
Eth.
ICTIMU´LI or
VICTIMU´LI (Eth.
Ἰκτούμουλοι, Strab.), a people of Cisalpine Gaul, situated at the foot of the Alps, in the territory of Vercellae. They are mentioned by Strabo (
v. p.218), who speaks of a village of the Ictimuli, where there were gold mines, which he seems to place in the neighbourhood of Vercellae; but the passage is so confused that it would leave us in doubt. Pliny, however, who notices the gold mines of the Victimuli among the most productive in Italy, distinctly places them “in agro Vercellensi.” We learn from him that they were at one time worked on so large a scale that a law was passed by the Roman censors prohibiting the employment in them of more than 5000 men at once. (
Plin. Nat. 33.4. s. 21.) Their site is not more precisely indicated by either of the above authors, but the Geographer of Ravenna mentions the “civitas, quae dicitur Victimula” as situated “near Eporedia, not far from the foot of the Alps” (Geogr. Rav. 4.30); and a modern writer has traced the existence of the “Castellum Victimula” during the middle ages, and shown that it must have been situated between
Ivrea and
Biella on the banks of the
Elvo. Traces of the ancient gold mines, which appear to have been worked during the middle ages, may be still observed in the neigh-bouring mountains. (Durandi,
Alpi Graie e Pennine, pp. 110--112; Walckenaer,
Géogr. des Gaules, vol. i. p. 168.)
[
E.H.B]
