AMITERNUM  , an

ancient town of the Sabines, situated about 5 m . N. of Aquila, in the broad valley of the Aternus, from which, according to Varro, it took its name . It was stormed by the Romans in 293 B.C., and though it suffered from the wars of the Republican period, it seems to have risen to renewed prosperity under the empire . This it owed largely to its position . It lay at the point of junction of four roads—the . Via Caecilia, the Via Claudia Nova and two branches of the Via Salaria, which joined it at the 64th and 89th miles respectively . The fertility of its territory was also praised by ancient authors . There are considerable remains of an aqueduct, an amphitheatre and a theatre (the latter excavated in 1880—see Notizie degli scavi, r88o, 290, 350, 379), all of which belong to the imperial period, while in the hill on which the village of S . Vittorino is built are some Christian catacombs . Amiternum was the birthplace of the historian Sallust . In a gorge 11 m. east are massive remains of cyclopean walls (i.e. in rough blocks), probably intended to regulate the flow of the stream (N . Persichetti in Romische Mitteilungen, 1902, 134 seq.) .