VETULONIUM, or VETULONIA (

See also:

• ETRUSCAN

Etruscan Veltuna)  , an ancient town of Etruria, Italy, the site of which is probably occupied by the modern village of Vetulonia, which up to 1887 bore the name of Colonna . It lies 1130 ft. above sea-level, about so m. direct N.W. of Grosseto, on the N.E. side of the hills which project from the flat Maremma and form the promontory of Castiglione . The place is little mentioned in ancient literature, though Silius Italicus tells us that it was hence that the Romans took their magisterial insignia (fasces, curule chair,- purple toga and brazen trumpets), and it was undoubtedly one of the twelve cities of Etruria . Its site was not identified before 1881, and the identification has been denied in various works by C . Dotto dei Dauli, who places it on the Poggio Castiglione near Massa Marittima, where scanty remains of buildings (possibly of city walls) have also been found . This site seems to agree better with the indications of medieval documents . But certainly an Etruscan city was situated on the hill of Colonna, where there are remains of city walls of massive limestone, in almost horizontal courses . The objects discovered in its extensive necropolis, where over i000 tombs have been excavated, are now in the museums of Grosseto and Florence . The most important were surrounded by tumuli, which still form a prominent feature in the landscape . See G . Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London, 1883), ii . 263; Notizie degli Scavi, passim; I .

Falchi, Ricerche di Vetulonia (

Prato, 1881), and other works, especially Vetulonia e la sua necropoli antichissima (Florence, 1891); G . Sordini, Vetulonia (Spoleto, 1894) and references . (T .