OPITERGIUM
(Oderzo) Italy.
A site in the
low Venetian alluvial plain, certainly of the early Venetian age with Celtic traces. It developed at the frontier,
marked by the river Livenza, between the Veneti and the
Galli Carni. Very probably the center was on the Postumia, the great consular road constructed in 148 B.C. to
link Genun with Aquileia. A corps of Opitergimi, siding
with Caesar in his war with Pompey, preferred self extinction to surrender, according to the account of Lucan (
Scol. al 1.4, 462; cf. also Livy
Epit. 110,
Florus 2.13.20).
The city became a municipium after the promulgation
of the well-known Lex Julia Municipalis in 49 B.C. Opitergium was assigned to the tribus Papiria. It was perhaps
an administrative center for the many pagi in the rich
surrounding countryside. Nothing remains of its religious
and civic buildings. The only testimony of its existence
are inscriptions and sculptures, now on display in a small
museum. Recorded are Jupiter Ammon, the Vires, several
decurioni who were members of the municipal council,
and the usual Augustales. Notable among the material
preserved are a relief with a maenad, several circular
altars richly decorated with scrollwork. A beautiful bronze breastplate of the Augustan age is in the Archaeological Museum at Venice.
In A.D. 167 the Quadi and the Marcomanni reached its
gates (Amm. Marc. 24.6.1), but a short time later normal daily life resumed. One of its citizens, L. Ragonius Urinatius Larcius Quintianus, became vice consul at the time of Commodius (
CIL V, 2112). Opitergium's mosaics
of civil life from the 3d and 4th c. are among the most
interesting in the region. There are hunting and fishing
scenes, and a representation in perspective of a villa
rustica enclosed within a protective wall.
The Lombards in two successive expeditions in 635
and 667 destroyed the town, according to Paolo Diacono
(4.38.45; 5.28). It revived only at the end of the 10th c.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Degrassi,
Il confine nord-orientale
dell'Italia romana (1954) 114; R. Cessi, “Da Roma a
Bisanzio,” and G. B. Brusin, “Monumenti romani e
paleocristiani” in
Storia di Venezia (1957); P. Fraccaro,
“La via Postumia,”
Opuscula (1957) IV; B. Forlati Tamaro,
Guida del Museo (1959).
B. FORLATI TAMARO
