SORA
Italy.
Some 96 km E-SE of Rome in
fertile country in a bend of the river Liris. First mentioned as a Volscian town, Sora fell to Rome in the 4th
c. B.C. and was made a Latin colony in 303 B.C. It acquired Roman citizenship in 90 B.C. and soon became a Roman colonia. Marius' birthplace, Cereatae, lay some 16 km to the SW, where the abbey of Casamari now
stands.
The visible ancient monuments in the town proper are
the substructures of the Duomo and a large (temple ?)
podium; polygonal fortifications exist on the pyramidal
citadel, Monte S. Casto, which, as vividly described by
Livy (
9.24), towers some 244 m above the town. Since
1883 a modern bridge has replaced the Roman one
across the Liris, but another Roman bridge (Ponte Marmone, probably of the 2d c. B.C.) still survives ca. 4 km below Sora, near the church of San Domenico, which incorporates Roman masonry thought by some to belong to the villa where Cicero was born.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S. Aurigemma,
Configurazione Stradale della Regione Sorana nell' Epoca Romana (1911); A. Lauri,
Sora e il Suo Castello Romano-medioevale (1958).
E. T. SALMON
