PELTUI´NUM
PELTUI´NUM (Eth.
Peltuinas,--ātis:
Ansedonia), a considerable town of the Vestini, and one of the four ascribed to that people by Pliny (
3.12. s. 17). Its name is not found in Ptolemy or the Itineraries, but its municipal importance is attested by various inscriptions. One of these confirms the fact mentioned by Pliny, that the Aufinates were closely connected with, or dependent on, Peltuinum, apparently the more important place of the two. We learn from the Liber Coloniarum (p. 229) that it attained the rank of a colony, probably under Augustus : but at a later period, as we learn from an inscription of the date of A.D. 242, it was reduced to the condition of a Praefectura, though it seems to have been still a flourishing town. (Orell.
Inscr. no. 4036; Zumpt,
de. Coloniis, p. 359, not.). Its site was unknown to Cluverius, but can be fixed with certainty at a spot called
Ansedonia, between the villages of
Castel Nuovo and
Prata, about 14 miles SE, of
Aquila, on the road from thence to
Popoli. The ancient name is retained by a neighbouring church, called in ecclesiastical documents
S. Paolo a Peltuino. A considerable part of the circuit of the ancient walls is still visible, with: remains of various public buildings, and the ruins of an amphitheatre of reticulated work. (Giovenazzi,
Aveia, p. 119; Romanelli, vol. iii. pp. 264--268; Orelli,
Inscr. 106, 3961, 3981).
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E.H.B]
