SUTRI (anc. Sutrium)  , a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province of Rome, 4 M . W.N.W. of the railway station of Capranica, which is 36 m. from Rome; 955 ft. above sea-level . Pop . (1901), 2701 . The town is picturesquely situated on a narrow hill, surrounded by ravines, a narrow neck on the west alone connecting it with the surrounding country . There are some remains of the ancient city walls of rectangular blocks of tufa on the southern side of the town, and some rock-cut sewers in the cliffs below them . The cathedral is modern, but the crypt, with twenty columns, is old, and the campanile dates from the 13th century . In the cliffs opposite the town on the south is the rock-cut church of the Madonna del Parto, developed, no doubt, out of an Etruscan tomb, of which there are many here; and close by is a rock-hewn amphitheatre of the Roman period, with axes of 55 and 44 yds., now most picturesque . The position of Sutri was important, commanding as it did the road into Etruria, the later Via Cassia; and it is spoken of by Livy as one of the keys Of Etruria, Nepet being the other . It came into the hands of Rome after the fall of Veii, and a Latin colony was founded there; it was lost again in 386, but was recovered and recolonized in 383 "(?) . It was besieged by the Etruscans in 311—10 s.c., but not taken . With Nepet and ten other Latin colonies it refused further help in the Hannibalic War in 209 B.C .

Its importance as a fortress explains, according to

Festus, the proverb Sutrium ire, of one who goes on important business, as it occurs in Plautus . It is mentioned in the war of 41 B.c., and received a colony of veterans under the triumviri (Colonia coniuncta Julia Sutrina) . Inscriptions show that it was a place of some importance under the empire, and it is mentioned as occupied by the Lombards . See G . Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, i . 62 (London, 1883) . (T .