PERUSIA
(Perugia) Umbria, Italy.
The city,
64 km SE of Arezzo, rose on an uneven hill that overlooks the valley of the Tiber. Recent finds testify to the
presence of life in the Villanovan age, and continuous
development from the second half of the 6th c. B.C.
Perusia appears to have been a flourishing and populous
center, particularly from the 3d to the 1st c. B.C. It was
a Roman municipium ascribed to the tribus Tromentina.
In 41-40 B.C. L. Antonius was besieged at Perusia and
in 40 B.C. the city was taken and sacked by the troops
of Octavian.
The ancient city was enclosed by a wall built of travertine blocks, which is preserved for long stretches;
most of its circumference may be traced. Several ancient
gates still open the wall. Among the most important are
the so-called Arch of Augustus, flanked by two keeps,
and the Marzia gate actually built into the bastion of
the Paolina fortress. The gates and the walls have been
variously dated. According to the most recent studies
they were constructed in the second half of the 2d c. B.C.
Probably contemporary with the walls is the well built
of large blocks of travertine below Piazza Piccinino, at
the foot of the city fortifications.
The area of habitation, which has provided very few
remains, occupied the center of the modern city. A mosaic showing Orpheus and the wild beasts from the 2d c.
A.D. probably comes from a bath building. It was found
in the locality called S. Elisabetta, outside the ancient
city walls.
Among the monuments surviving from the necropoleis
that grew up around the city, particularly notable is the Hellenistic Hypogeum of the Volumni. It is dug into the
earth and imitates the plan of a house. Its atrium, covered
by a ceiling with a double slope, opens into various rooms.
Several of the ceilings and triangular supports are decorated with reliefs. The tomb of S. Manno, a rectangular hypogeal room, is built of blocks of travertine and has a barrel vault.
The National Archaeological Museum of Umbria is
housed in the former convent of S. Domenico in Perugia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Conestabile,
Dei monumenti di Perugia
etrusca e romana (1855-70); C. Shaw,
Etruscan Perugia
(1939);
EAA 6 (1965) 84-88 (Pietrangeli-Feruglio)
with bibliography; H. Blanck in
AA (1970) 325f; U.
Ciotti in
Umbria (1970) 108ff.
U. CIOTTI
