MUTINA
(Modena) Emilia Romagna, Italy.
A Ligurian settlement ca. 36 km W-NW of Bologna. It
came under Etruscan and Boian rule before passing to
Rome ca. 218 B.C. It became a citizen colony of Cisalpine
Gaul in 183 B.C. (
Livy 21.25; Polyb. 3.40). The object
or scene of many battles, including especially the bellum
Mutinense of 43 B.C., the town's position on the Via
Aemilia marked it for military, political, and commercial
importance and prosperity to at least the. late 4th c. A.D.
(Amm. Marc. 31.3; Ambros. 2.8).
Since the modern city lies over the ancient town, excavation has been broad but not systematic. The site is surmised to have covered an area ca. 950 by 550 m. The chief artery was Via Aemilia; the N wall probably ran
along the line of the Piazza Roma and Via S. Giovanni
del Cantone. Of public buildings, only the amphitheater
has been tentatively identified, under the modern Camera
di Commercio.
Neither the local ceramics industry (Plin.
HN 35.12.-101) nor the general economic prosperity are attested
by the finds. The necropolis of Piazza Matteotti has produced a sarcophagus whose mixed style reflects its origin in the 2d c. A.D., and its later use in the 4th c. Provincial art of the 1st c. A.D. is seen in the stelai of the Novii and
of the Apollinares, ministers of the imperial cult of Augustus. Excavations along Via Aemilia near S. Lazzaro have revealed some funerary monuments of the 1st c. A.D.
The Museo Lapidario contains a collection of Roman
and Christian epigraphy; the galleries of the Palazzo museums house prehistoric material and a few interesting Greek and Roman sculptures.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Corradi-Cervi, “Mutina,” in
St. e
Doc. dep. St. patria per l'Emilia e Romagna, sez. di M.
I (1937) fasc. III, 137-664; id., “
L'anfiteatro rom. di M.,”
ibid. 5 (1941) 3-6; G. Mancini,
Em.Rom., II (1944) 67-73; P. E. Arias, “Necropoli rom. di pz. Matteotti,”
NSc
(1948) 26-43; G. C. Susini, “Testi epigrafici Mutinensi,”
Epigrafica 21 (1959) 79-96.
D. C. SCAVONE
