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AUFIDENA , an See also: ancient city of the See also: Samnites Caraceni, the site of which is just See also: north of the See also: modern Alfedena,' See also: Italy, a station on the railway between See also: Sulmona and Isernia, 37 M. from the latter
.
Its remains are fully and accurately described by L
.
Mariani in Monumenti dei Lincei (1901), 225 seq.: cf
.
Notizie degli scavi, 1901, 442 seq.; 1902, 516 seq
.
The ancient city occupied two hills, both over 3800 ft. above See also: sea-level (in the valley between were found the supposed remains of the later forum), and the walls, of rough Cyclopean See also: work, were over a mile in
' Two churches here contain paintings of See also: interest in the See also: history of Abruzzese See also: art, and one of them, the Madonna del Campo, contained fragments of a See also: temple of considerable See also: size
.
See also: AUGEREAU
length
.
A fortified outpost See also: lay on a still higher See also: hill to the north
.
Not very much is as yet known of the city itself (though one public
See also: building of the 5th century B.C. was excavated in 'Igor, and a small sanctuary in 1902), See also: attention having been chiefly devoted to the See also: necropolis which lay below it; 1400 tombs had already been examined in 1908, though this number is conjectured to be only a sixteenth of the whole
.
They are all inhumation burials, of the advanced iron age, and date from the 7th to the 4th century B.C., falling into three classes—those without coffin, those with a coffin formed of See also: stone slabs, and those with a coffin formed of tiles
.
The
See also: objects discovered are preserved in a museum on the spot
.
In the See also: Roman See also: period we find Aufidena figuring as a See also: post station on the road between Sulmo and See also: Aesernia, which, however, runs past See also: Castel di Sangro, See also: crossing the See also: river by an ancient See also: bridge some 5 M. to the north-See also: east
.
Castel di Sangro has remains of ancient walls, but these are attributed to a road by Mariani, and in any See also: case the fortified See also: area there was quite small, only one-sixteenth the size of Aufidena
.
The attempted See also: identification of Castel di Sangro with Aufidena must therefore be 'rejected, though we must allow that it was probably the Roman post station; the ancient city, since its capture by the See also: Romans in the 3rd century B.C., having lost something of its importance
.
(T
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