PONTIA
(Ponza, island of) Italy.
In the Tyrrhenian Sea S of Rome, 33 km off Cape Circe the nearest
point of land on the W coast of Italy, and 268 km from
the E coast of Sardinia. The main island of the Pontine
archipelago, its relative importance is due to the fact that
it is the only island in the group with a naturally protected harbor. According to legend, this is Circe's mythical island, and it has been suggested that the NW Pontine group, consisting of the islands of Pontia, Palmarola,
Zannone, and the rock of Gavi may be the islands of the
Sirens. It lies in an area rich in Homeric tradition
throughout classical antiquity (Cic.
Nat. D. 3.19;
Verg.
Aen. 3.386; Strab. 5; Pliny
HN 3.9).
So far, no archaeological evidence has appeared of a
Greek or Mycenaean settlement in the Pontine group.
The islands, however, provide the first landfall on a
course from the W Mediterranean through the Straits of
Bonifaccio to the Gulf of Gaeta and the Bay of Naples
area, and Pontia's protected coves were surely known to
mariners from earliest times. Pontia may be thought of
as the outer edge of the maritime zone controlled by the
cities of Magna Graecia: beyond it to the N and W lay
the hostile waters of the Etruscans and their Phoenician
allies.
A Latin colony was founded on Pontia by the Romans
in 313-312 (
Diod. Sic. 19.1013;
Livy 9.28.7), a significant proof of Rome's early concern with the sea and with
its maritime defenses in the Tyrrhenian. According to
Livy (
27.9.1-10; 39.15) the colony was important enough
by the year 209 to lend noteworthy assistance to Rome
in the war with Hannibal, but no trace of the Republican
settlement has been found.
During the Giulio-Claudian dynasty the island was
famous as a place of exile for prominent members of
the royal family; among them Nero, son of Germanicus,
an adopted son of Tiberius (Suet.
Tib. 54) and the sisters, Agrippina and Giulia, banished by Caligula (Dio.
Cass.
Hist. 84; Tac.
Ann. 14.53). The major extant ruins
belongs to two villas of the Augustan and early Julio-Claudian periods. One of these occupied a position on
the high promontory near the S end of the E shore of
the island known as the Punta della Madonna. This headland encloses the seaward side of Pontia's best protected
cove, probably the location of the ancient harbor as it is
of the modern one. Along the heights are remains of
ancient terracing and it is possible to trace the outlines
of several structures, one of which has been described as
an odeon. At the base of the headland at water level,
facing into the bay, a system of rock-cut chambers and
basins are usually described as fisheries belonging to this
villa. The largest of the basins (7.5 x 10 m) is located
just outside the root of the breakwater at Punta della
Madonna, which, together with the harbor embankments,
was completely rebuilt in 1739. The other villa occupied
a position on the landward side of the harbor at a place
now called Santa Maria.
Along the heights of the ridge separating the harbor
at Punta della Madonna from another deep cove on the
W side of the island is a necropolis characterized by a
standard type of Hellenistic rock-cut hypogeum: a single
rectangular chamber containing both niches for cinerary
urns and loculi for inhumation burials. All the known
materials from this cliff-top necropolis are of the 1st and
2d centuries A.D., though architecturally it belongs to an
earlier tradition.
Apart from the villas and the necropolis the bay area
enclosed by Punta della Madonna and Santa Maria preserves an interesting feature which further suggests that
this SE portion of the island was the center of ancient
habitation on Pontia and perhaps the location of the early
Republican settlement. This is a man-made tunnel 168 m
long and lighted at intervals by a number of shafts cut
through the rock overhead. The tunnel connects the main
harbor area at Punta della Madonna with the Cala Chiaia di Luna, a cove facing W on the other side of the
island's narrow spine. This tunnel, undoubtedly of Roman construction, is in many places reinforced with concrete faced with reticulate masonry. It connects what
must have been the most thickly settled part of the island
around the harbor on the S-SE coast with an alternative
bay on the W, the Chiaia di Luna, which was no doubt
used for mooring ships during periods of bad weather
from E and NE winds.
On the N side of the island a system of ancient subterranean aqueducts has been reported with openings in
the Calla dell'Inferno on the E, and possibly also farther
S near Santa Maria. A recent underwater survey along
the coasts of Pontia reported concentrations of amphora
fragments and fragments of common and cooking ware
dating mainly to the Late Republican and Early Empire.
The main concentrations were located off Punta della
Madonna and Santa Maria and seem to belong to the
villa sites.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Tricoli,
Monografia per la Isole del
Gruppo Ponziano (1859); A. Maiuri, “Ricognizioni archeologiche nell'Isola di Ponza,”
BdA 6 (1926) 224-32;
L. Jacono, “Solarium d'una villa romana,”
NSc (1929)
232ff; id., “Un porto duomillenario,”
Istituto di Studi
Romani. Atti del III Congresso Nazionale (1935) 318-24; id., “Ponza,”
Enc. Ital. 27 (1935) 907; id., “Una
singolare piscina marittima in Ponza,”
Campania Romana (Sezione Campana degli Studi Romani, Naples,
1938) 143-62; L. M. Dies,
Ponza, perla di Roma. (1950)
with an introduction by A. Maiuri; A. M. Radmilli, “Le
Isole Pontine e il commercio dell'ossidiana nel continente
durante il periodo neo-eneolitico,”
Origines (
Scritti per
M. G. Baserga) (1954) 115ff; O. Baldacci,
Le Isole
Ponziane Memoria della Societa Geografica Italiana,
XXII (1955); F. Castaldi, “L'Isola di Ponza,”
Annali
dell'Istituto Superiore di Scienze e Lettere Santa Chiara
8 (1958) 167-215;
EAA 6 (1965) 376 (L. Guerrini);
M.F.A. Ghetti,
L'archipelago Pontino nella Storia del
Medio Tirreno (1968) esp. pp. 1-59 and bibliography,
pp. 309-15; G. Schmiedt,
Il Livello Antica del Mar Tirreno (1972) 177.
V. J. BRUNO
