ANTI´NUM
ANTI´NUM a city of the Marsians, still called
Cività d' Antino. situated on a lofty hill in the upper valley of the Liris (now called the
Valle di Roveto), about 15 miles from Sora and 6 from the Lake Fucinus, from which it is, however, separated by an intervening mountain ridge.
It is mentioned only by Pliny (
3.12.17), who enumerates the ATINATES among the cities of the Marsians; but the true form of the name is preserved to us by numerous inscriptions that have been discovered in the modern village, and from which we learn that it must have been a municipal town of considerable importance. Besides these, there remain several portions of the ancient walls, of polygonal construction, with a gateway of the same style, which still serves for an entrance to the modern village, and is called
Porta Campanile. The Roman inscriptions confirm the testimony of Pliny as to the city being a Marsic one (one of them has “populi Antinatium Marsorum” ); but an Oscan inscription which has been found there is in the Volscian dialect, and renders it probable that the city was at an earlier period occupied by that people. (Mommsen,
Unter-Italischen Dialekte, p. 321.)
It has been supposed by some writers to be the “castellum ad lacum Fucinum” mentioned by Livy (
4.57) as conquered from that people in B.C. 408; but this is very doubtful. (Romanelli,
[p. 1.142]vol. iii. pp. 222--232; Orelli,
Inscr. 146, 3940; Craven's
Abruzzi, vol. i. pp. 117--122; Hoare's
Classical Tour, vol. i. p. 339, &c.; Kramer,
Der Fuciner See, p. 54, note.)
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E.H.B]
