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43-554: Lungotevere (Italian for Tiber Waterfront ) is an alley or boulevard running along the river Tiber within the city of Rome . The building of the Lungoteveres required the demolition of the former edifices along the river banks and the construction of retaining walls called muraglioni (massive walls). The Lungoteveres were built with the main goal to eliminate and dam the overflows of the Tiber, due to its recurring floods. On July 6, 1875

86-547: A century later. The heavy sedimentation of the river made maintaining Ostia difficult, prompting the emperors Claudius and Trajan to establish a new port on the Fiumicino in the first century AD. They built a new road, the Via Portuensis , to connect Rome with Fiumicino, leaving the city by Porta Portese (the port gate). Both ports were eventually abandoned due to silting. Several popes attempted to improve navigation on

129-569: A family. Those linguists propose instead that the ancestors of the 1st millennium Indo-European languages of Italy were two or more different languages that separately descended from Indo-European in a more remote past and separately entered Europe, possibly by different routes or at different times. That view stems in part from the difficulty in identifying a common Italic homeland in prehistory, or reconstructing an ancestral "Common Italic" or "Proto-Italic" language from which those languages could have descended. Some common features that seem to connect

172-463: A generally southerly direction past Perugia and Rome to meet the sea at Ostia . Known in ancient times as Flavus (Latin for 'the Blond';), in reference to the yellowish colour of its water, the Tiber has advanced significantly at its mouth, by about 3 km (2 mi), since Roman times, leaving the ancient port of Ostia Antica 6 kilometres (4 miles) inland. However, it does not form

215-538: A god named Tiberinus , is shown with streams of water flowing from his hair and beard. 41°44′26″N 12°14′00″E  /  41.7405°N 12.2334°E  / 41.7405; 12.2334 Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family , whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of

258-431: A guess as anyone's". Schrijver argues for a Proto-Italo-Celtic stage, which he suggests was spoken in "approximately the first half or the middle of the 2nd millennium BC", from which Celtic split off first, then Venetic, before the remainder, Italic, split into Latino-Faliscan and Sabellian. Italic peoples probably moved towards the Italian Peninsula during the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, gradually reaching

301-457: A kind of swamp and river bank weed ( Typha angustifolia ), Iberian hydronyms Tibilis , Tebro and Numidian Aquae Tibilitanae . Yet another etymology is from *dubri-, water, considered by Alessio as Sicel , whence the form Θύβρις later Tiberis. This root *dubri- is widespread in Western Europe e.g. Dover, Portus Dubris. According to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on

344-474: A law was approved, getting off the demolition of the former buildings on the banks and the achievement of boulevards flanking the river and massive retaining walls ( muraglioni ); the width of the river bed was regulated up to 100 meters (330 feet). The Lungoteveres, inspired by the example of Paris, were designed by the engineer Raffaele Canevari, who managed to rescue the Tiber Island adding artificial rapids to

387-409: A proportional delta , owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, due to the steep shelving of the coast, and to slow tectonic subsidence . The source of the Tiber consists of two springs 10 m (33 ft) away from each other on Mount Fumaiolo . These springs are called Le Vene . The springs are in a beech forest 1,268 m (4,160 ft) above sea level . During

430-502: Is disputed are Venetic and Siculian . These long-extinct languages are known only from inscriptions in archaeological finds. In the first millennium BC, several (other) non-Italic languages were spoken in the peninsula, including members of other branches of Indo-European (such as Celtic and Greek ) as well as at least one non-Indo-European one, Etruscan . It is generally believed that those 1st millennium Italic languages descend from Indo-European languages brought by migrants to

473-546: Is named Porto di Ripa Grande ( rione Trastevere ). In the quarter Portuense, a stretch of the Lungotevere della Magliana is flanked by Riva Pian Due Torri . The stretch between Lungotevere Testaccio and Lungotevere San Paolo is named Riva Ostiense (quarter Ostiense ). [REDACTED] Media related to Lungotevere at Wikimedia Commons Tiber The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in Central Italy and flows in

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516-589: Is referred to as "swimming the Thames " or "crossing the Thames". In ancient Rome, executed criminals were thrown into the Tiber. People executed at the Gemonian stairs were thrown in the Tiber during the later part of the reign of the emperor Tiberius . This practice continued over the centuries. For example, the corpse of Pope Formosus was thrown into the Tiber after the infamous Cadaver Synod held in 897. In addition to

559-697: Is sometimes written in the Hebrew, Greek, or Cyrillic script, and some forms of Romanian , which are written in the Cyrillic script. Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Historical linguists have generally concluded that

602-535: Is that there never was a unique "Proto-Italic" whose diversification resulted in an "Italic branch" of Indo-European. Some linguists, like Silvestri and Rix, further argue that no common Proto-Italic can be reconstructed such that its phonological system may have developed into those of Latin and Osco-Umbrian through consistent phonetic changes and that its phonology and morphology can be consistently derived from those of Proto-Indo-European . However, Rix later changed his mind and became an outspoken supporter of Italic as

645-569: The Aurelian Walls flanking the left bank. The Ponte Sant'Angelo was widened too, adding two more arches. Along with these structures, the erection of the Lungotevere provoked the loss of one of the most picturesque environments of the city. The works began in 1876 and were completed in 1926; in the circumstance, several bridges were built, linking the two banks of the Tiber. The list is in geographic order, from upstream to downstream. The stretch between Lungotevere Ripa and lungotevere Portuense

688-729: The Lusitanian language may have belonged to the Italic family. In the history of Latin of ancient times, there are several periods: As the Roman Republic extended its political dominion over the whole of the Italian peninsula, Latin became dominant over the other Italic languages, which ceased to be spoken perhaps sometime in the 1st century AD. From Vulgar Latin , the Romance languages emerged. The Latin language gradually spread beyond Rome, along with

731-481: The alphabet , which they had learned from the Phoenicians ; specifically, what we now call Western Greek alphabet . The invention quickly spread through the whole peninsula, across language and political barriers. Local adaptations (mainly minor letter shape changes and the dropping or addition of a few letters) yielded several Old Italic alphabets . The inscriptions show that, by 700 BC, many languages were spoken in

774-424: The 1930s, Benito Mussolini had an antique marble Roman column built at the point where the river rises, inscribed QUI NASCE IL FIUME SACRO AI DESTINI DI ROMA ("Here is born the river / sacred to the destinies of Rome"). An eagle is on the top of the column, part of its fascist symbolism . The first miles of the Tiber run through Valtiberina before entering Umbria. The genesis of the name Tiber probably

817-522: The 6th and 5th centuries BC. There is a historical connection of Messapian with the Illyrian tribes, added to the archaeological connection in ceramics and metals existing between both peoples, which motivated the hypothesis of linguistic connection. But the evidence of Illyrian inscriptions is reduced to personal names and places, which makes it difficult to support such a hypothesis. It has also been proposed by some scholars, although not confirmed, that

860-847: The 7th century BC. Their alphabets were clearly derived from the Etruscan alphabet , which was derived from the Western Greek alphabet not much earlier than that. There is no reliable information about the languages spoken before that time. Some conjectures can be made based on toponyms , but they cannot be verified. There is no guarantee that the intermediate phases between those old Italic languages and Indo-European will be found. The question of whether Italic originated outside Italy or developed by assimilation of Indo-European and other elements within Italy, approximately on or within its current range there, remains. An extreme view of some linguists and historians

903-491: The Latino-Faliscan and Osco-Umbrian languages constituted two distinct branches of Indo-European. This view gained acceptance in the second half of the 20th century, though proponents such as Rix later rejected the idea, and the unitary theory remains dominant in contemporary scholarship. The following classification, proposed by Michiel de Vaan (2008), is generally agreed on, although some scholars have recently rejected

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946-512: The Tiber in the 17th and 18th centuries, with extensive dredging continuing into the 19th century. Trade was boosted for a while, but by the 20th century, silting had resulted in the river only being navigable as far as Rome. The Tiber was once known for its floods — the Campus Martius is a flood plain and would regularly flood to a depth of 2 m (6 ft 7 in). There were also numerous major floods; for example, on September 15, 1557

989-437: The ancient Indo-European languages of the Italian peninsula that were not identifiable as belonging to other branches of Indo-European, such as Greek, belonged to a single branch of the family, parallel for example to Celtic and Germanic . The founder of this theory is Antoine Meillet (1866–1936). This unitary theory has been criticized by, among others, Alois Walde , Vittore Pisani and Giacomo Devoto , who proposed that

1032-468: The ancient Italic languages was Latin , the official language of ancient Rome , which conquered the other Italic peoples before the common era . The other Italic languages became extinct in the first centuries AD as their speakers were assimilated into the Roman Empire and shifted to some form of Latin. Between the third and eighth centuries AD, Vulgar Latin (perhaps influenced by substrata from

1075-553: The ancient languages. For information on the academic study of the Romance languages, see Romance studies . Most Italic languages (including Romance) are generally written in Old Italic scripts (or the descendant Latin alphabet and its adaptations), which descend from the alphabet used to write the non-Italic Etruscan language, and ultimately from the Greek alphabet . The notable exceptions are Judaeo-Spanish (also known as Ladino), which

1118-402: The banks of the Tiber about 25 km (16 mi) from the sea at Ostia . Tiber Island , in the center of the river between Trastevere and the ancient city center, was the site of an important ancient ford and was later bridged. Legend says Rome's founders, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus , were abandoned on its waters, where they were rescued by the she-wolf, Lupa. The river marked

1161-685: The boundary between the lands of the Etruscans to the west, the Sabines to the east and the Latins to the south. Benito Mussolini , born in Romagna , adjusted the boundary between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna , so that the springs of the Tiber would lie in Romagna. The Tiber was critically important to Roman trade and commerce, as ships could reach as far as 100 km (60 mi) upriver; some evidence indicates that it

1204-625: The eastern Mediterranean ). Other possibly non-Indo-European languages present at the time were Rhaetian in the Alpine region , Ligurian around present-day Genoa , and some unidentified languages in Sardinia . Those languages have left some detectable imprint in Latin. The largest language in southern Italy, except Ionic Greek spoken in the Greek colonies, was Messapian , known from some 260 inscriptions dating from

1247-505: The growth of the power of this state, displacing, beginning in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the languages of other Italic tribes, as well as Illyrian , Messapian and Venetic , etc. The Romanisation of the Italian Peninsula was basically complete by the 1st century BC; except for the south of Italy and Sicily , where the dominance of Greek was preserved. The attribution of Ligurian is controversial. The main debate concerning

1290-596: The inclusion of Venetic in the Italic branch. Proto-Italic was probably originally spoken by Italic tribes north of the Alps . In particular, early contacts with Celtic and Germanic speakers are suggested by linguistic evidence. Bakkum defines Proto-Italic as a "chronological stage" without an independent development of its own, but extending over late Proto-Indo-European and the initial stages of Proto-Latin and Proto-Sabellic. Meiser's dates of 4000 BC to 1800 BC, well before Mycenaean Greek, are described by him as being "as good

1333-522: The king-list of Alba Longa , was said to have drowned in the River Albula, which was afterwards called Tiberis . The myth may have explained a memory of an earlier, perhaps pre-Indo-European name for the river, "white" ( alba ) with sediment, or "from the mountains" from pre-Indo-European word "alba, albion" mount, elevated area. Tiberis/Tifernus may be a pre-Indo-European substrate word related to Aegean tifos "still water", Greek phytonym τύφη

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1376-614: The numerous modern bridges over the Tiber in Rome, there remain a few ancient bridges (now mostly pedestrian-only) that have survived in part (e.g., the Ponte Milvio and the Ponte Sant'Angelo ), or in whole ( Pons Fabricius ). In addition to bridges, the Metro trains use tunnels. Following the standard Roman depiction of rivers as powerfully built reclining male gods, the Tiber, also interpreted as

1419-472: The origin of the Italic languages mirrors that on the origins of the Greek ones, except that there is no record of any "early Italic" to play the role of Mycenaean Greek . All that is known about the linguistic landscape of Italy is from inscriptions made after the introduction of the alphabet in the peninsula, around 700 BC onwards, and from Greek and Roman writers several centuries later. The oldest known samples come from Umbrian and Faliscan inscriptions from

1462-464: The other Italic languages) diversified into the Romance languages , which are the only Italic languages natively spoken today, while Literary Latin also survived. Besides Latin, the known ancient Italic languages are Faliscan (the closest to Latin), Umbrian and Oscan (or Osco-Umbrian), and South Picene . Other Indo-European languages once spoken in the peninsula whose inclusion in the Italic branch

1505-409: The peninsula sometime in the 2nd millennium BC through Bell Beaker and Urnfield culture groups north and east of the Alps . However, the source of those migrations and the history of the languages in the peninsula are still a matter of debate among historians. In particular, it is debated whether the ancient Italic languages all descended from a single Proto-Italic language after its arrival in

1548-415: The region, including members of several branches of Indo-European and several non-Indo-European languages. The most important of the latter was Etruscan , attested by evidence from more than 10,000 inscriptions and some short texts. No relation has been found between Etruscan and any other known language, and there is still no clue about its possible origin (except for inscriptions on the island of Lemnos in

1591-485: The region, or whether the migrants brought two or more Indo-European languages that were only distantly related. With over 800 million native speakers, the Romance languages make Italic the second-most-widely spoken branch of the Indo-European family, after Indo-Iranian . However, in academia the ancient Italic languages form a separate field of study from the medieval and modern Romance languages. This article focuses on

1634-689: The right branch of the Tiber below the Pons Caestius. Many artistically and historically significant buildings, structures and churches were demolished for the construction: among them, Palazzo Altoviti, the Teatro Apollo at Tor di Nona , Sant'Anna dei Bresciani, the Ripetta Harbour , the Roman Pons Cestius (pulled down and rebuilt with wider side arches), the already damaged Roman Ponte Rotto (of which only one arch remains), some minor gates of

1677-522: The river flooded to a height of 62 feet above sea level and over 1,000 people died. The river is now confined between high stone embankments, which were begun in 1876. Within the city, the riverbanks are lined by boulevards known as lungoteveri , streets "along the Tiber". Because the river is identified with Rome, the terms "swimming the Tiber" or "crossing the Tiber" have come to be the shorthand term for converting to Roman Catholicism . A Catholic who converts to Protestantism, in particular Anglicanism,

1720-536: The riverside in Rome itself, lining the riverbanks around the Campus Martius area. The Romans connected the river with a sewer system (the Cloaca Maxima ) and with an underground network of tunnels and other channels, to bring its water into the middle of the city. Wealthy Romans had garden-parks or horti on the banks of the river in Rome through the first century BC. These may have been sold and developed about

1763-583: The southern regions. Although an equation between archeological and linguistic evidence cannot be established with certainty, the Proto-Italic language is generally associated with the Terramare (1700–1150 BC) and Proto-Villanovan culture (1200–900 BC). At the start of the Iron Age, around 700 BC, Ionian Greek settlers from Euboea established colonies along the coast of southern Italy. They brought with them

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1806-510: Was pre-Latin, like the Roman name of Tibur (modern Tivoli ), and may be specifically Italic in origin. The same root is found in the Latin praenomen Tiberius . Also, Etruscan variants of this praenomen are in Thefarie (borrowed from Faliscan *Tiferios , lit. '(He) from the Tiber' < *Tiferis 'Tiber') and Teperie (via the Latin hydronym Tiber ). Legendary king Tiberinus , ninth in

1849-582: Was used to ship grain from the Val Teverina as long ago as the fifth century BC. It was later used to ship stone, timber, and foodstuffs to Rome. During the Punic Wars of the third century BC, the harbour at Ostia became a key naval base. It later became Rome's most important port, where wheat , olive oil , and wine were imported from Rome's colonies around the Mediterranean. Wharves were also built along

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