CLASTI´DIUM
CLASTI´DIUM (
Κλαστίδιον:
Casteggio), a town of Cisalpine Gaul, situated on the borders of Liguria, about 7 miles S. of the Padus.
It was on the high road from Placentia to Dertona, about 18 miles from the latter city (
Strab. v. p.217). Its name is chiefly celebrated on account of the victory gained under its walls in B.C. 222 by Marcellus over the Insubrians and their allies the Gaesatae, in which Virdomarus, king of the latter tribe, was slain by the Roman
[p. 1.631]consull with his own hand. (Pol. 2.34;
Plut. Marc. 6;
V. Max. 3.2.5;
Cic. Tusc. 4.22) On this occasion the Gauls had laid siege to Clastidium, which thus appears to have been already a place of strength and importance.
At the commencement of the Second Punic War it was selected by the Romans as a fortress in which they deposited large stores of corn, but the commander of the garrison, a native of Brundusium, betrayed it into the hands of Hannibal, who made it his place of arms for his operations on the Trebia. (Pol. 3.69;
Liv. 21.48.) Its name is afterwards repeatedly mentioned during the wars of the Romans with the Cispadane Gauls and their Ligurian allies, and appears to have been one of the most considerable places in this part of Italy. (
Liv. 32.29,
31.)
In one passage Livy terms it a Ligurian city, but it seems certain that it was properly a Gaulish one: Polybius tells us that it was in the territory of the Andri (2.34), but this name is probably a corruption of Anamari or Ananes. (Schweigh.
ad loc.) After the Roman conquest it seems to have fallen into insignificance, and though noticed by Strabo as still existing in his time, is not mentioned by any later writer, and is not found in the Itineraries.
There can however be no doubt that the modern town of
Casteggio or
Chiasteggio retains the ancient site as well as name.
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E.H.B]
