INTERAMNA NAHARS
(Terni) Umbria, Italy.
The modern city, 73 km N-NE of Rome, is near the
confluence of the Nera (ancient Nar) and the Serra,
which may have changed course since antiquity. The
ancient city must have been encircled by the rivers.
According to an inscription (
CIL XI, 4170) the city
was founded in 672 B.C. It lay along an alternate route
that heft the Flaminia at Narni. Terni was a flourishing
Roman municipium ascribed to the tribus Clustumina.
The Nera valley appears to have been a rather important center during the Iron Age. This is documented particularly by the finds from the large necropoleis of the
Acciaierie (at the foot of the Pentima hill) and of S.
Pietro in Campo (near the railway station), topographically and chronologically a continuation of the former.
The protohistoric necropoleis developed largely from the
10th to the 8th-7th c. B.C., but there are also tombs dating
to the 4th c. B.C. It is not possible to establish the habitation site related to the protohistoric necropoleis.
The Roman settlement, covered by the center of the
modern city, must have been about the size of the mediaeval city. A rather extensive stretch of the Roman city
wall of limestone, which probably encircled the whole
city, is visible below the Public Gardens.
The most important preserved monument is the amphitheater at the SW extremity of the city, near the wall,
It is dated, on the basis of an inscription, to the age of
Tiberius. Exploration under the Church of S. Salvatore,
earlier believed to overlie a Roman temple, has shown
that the Roman structures underneath belong to a lordly
domus independent of the church.
Archaeological material from the city and its environs
is preserved in the Civic Museum of Terni.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EAA 7 (1966) 721-23 (Feruglio) with
bibliography; H. Blanck, in
AA (1970) 326.
U. CIOTTI
