Suessa Pometia ( Greek : Σούεσσα Πωμεντιάνη ; also Pometia ) was an ancient city of Latium , which had ceased to exist in historical times. Although the modern city of Pomezia is named after it, the exact location of the ancient city is unknown.
77-456: It bordered on the Pomptinus ager or Pomptinae Paludes, which supposedly took its name. Virgil reckons it among the colonies of Alba , and must therefore have considered it as a Latin city: it is found also in the list of the same colonies given by Diodorus ; but it seems certain that it had at a very early period become a Volscian city. It was taken from that people by Tarquinius Superbus ,
154-522: A Medici , proposed to finish the project but was opposed by the Duke of Sermoneta over the fishing rights. In 1514, he decided to drain the region around Terracina instead, assigning the task to his brother Giuliano de Medici, commander of the papal army. The Medicis would retain all reclaimed land. In 1515, Giuliano hired Leonardo da Vinci to design the project. It provided the Ufente River with outlets through
231-592: A Roman military road constructed in 312 BC, crosses the inland side of the former marsh in a long, straight stretch flanked by trees. Before then, travelers had to use the Via Latina along the flanks of the mountains; Terracina could not be reached across the marsh. Further southward along the coast as far as Minturno is another stretch of former coastal marsh called the South Pontino, the largest section being between Terracina and Sperlonga , as far inland as Fondi . It
308-420: A daily dose of quinine . He invited Roman journalists to a press conference on his property. In 1902, large German newspapers, as well as foreign papers, carried long articles about the project. They often carried a sense of national pride about the development project. Donat argued above all for the extermination of malaria in the countryside surrounding the capital. Malaria prevented the expansion of Rome to
385-513: A distance of 20 km (12 mi). In another estimate, 80% of the rain falling on the Monti Lepini is absorbed, with a single spring at Ninfa exuding 2,000 L/s (71 cu ft/s). These facts explain why the main fill of the lagoon is peat, silt, and clay, and not thicker-grained alluvial deposits, and why it took so long. Alluvial deposits known as the Sezze Fan began about 4000 BC in
462-469: A farmer plowing while German shells landed right in his field. We tried to evacuate people ... But some of them simply refused to leave their homes. Sometimes the Germans would pick out one of the farmhouses, figuring we had a command post in it, I suppose, and blow it to smithereens. Then, and only then, did some Italian families move out ... on any side road we couldn't drive five minutes without seeing
539-515: A few years afterwards (495 BC) in the hands of the Volscians, at which time children of the leading men of the city were offered as hostages to prevent war, but when war broke out soon afterwards the city was again taken and pillaged by the consul Publius Servilius Priscus Structus . This time the blow seems to have been decisive; for the name of Suessa Pometia is never again mentioned in history, and all trace of it disappears. Pliny notices it among
616-460: A fortified point for the defense of the Pontine region." In 433 BC, Rome was struck by an epidemic and again sent buyers to the Pontine, this time successfully. Apparently, at least some of the marsh was under cultivation, which the high density of Roman settlements along the two northern roads might lead one to expect. Strabo says: "In front of Tarracina lies a great marsh, formed by two rivers;
693-438: A much later period the little island at its mouth, and the whole adjacent coast, became occupied with Roman villas; among which the most celebrated is that of Cicero , to which he repeatedly alludes in his letters, and which he describes as locus amoenus et in mari ipso (a pleasant place and right by the sea), commanding a view both of Antium and Circeii, and to which he retired on the death of his daughter Tullia in 45 BC. It
770-797: A plough and other agricultural tools, a stable, some cows, and several hectares of land, depending on local soil fertility and the size of the family. Mussolini used the 10-year operation for propaganda purposes, and was often photographed between workers, shirtless with a shovel in his hand, or threshing wheat at harvest time; these occasions were regularly filmed by the Istituto Luce for inclusion in nationally shown propaganda newsreels. The new towns of Littoria (1932, now Latina ), Sabaudia (1934), Pontinia (1935), Aprilia (1937), and Pomezia (1939) were founded, side by side with several other small borghi (rural villages). The carefully differentiated architecture and urban planning aspects of these towns
847-590: A series of volcanic changes began leading to the current landform: the first four eruptive cycles of a new volcano in the vicinity of the Monti Albani, which spread pyroclastic rock and formed a caldera . In the Campi di Annibale phase, 300-200 thousand years BP, a stratovolcano formed in the caldera. Approximately contemporaneously, in the Middle Pleistocene , 781-126 thousand years BP, beds of sand and clay, termed
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#1733092842691924-455: Is not possible to find 24 of the size of Terracina or Antium without counting Latium Vetus or the coastal lands south of Terracina. According to Plutarch , Julius Caesar had ambitious plans for the marsh, which if realized or realizable would have diverted the Tiber through it: "During the expedition [a planned campaign around Europe] he intended ... to receive the Tiber immediately below
1001-672: Is one of four geomorphic divisions of a somewhat larger area, the Pontine Region, also comprising the Monti Albani, the Volscian Mountains and Monte Circeo; in short, all of Roman Latium . The marsh itself was located in Latium Novum , the eastern part of the region, which the Romans removed from the sovereignty of the Volsci. The two terms create some confusion in the literature, as the region
1078-566: Is striking even today. On September 8, 1943, Italy changed sides in World War II, the king having already issued an order for Mussolini's arrest. Rescued by the Germans, he became the head of the Republic of Salò, a puppet regime over northern Italy. The defense of Italy and the suppression of its insurgent population were left to the Wehrmacht . After the loss of Sicily , they successfully defended
1155-543: Is too large to be of modern humans and has been assigned the genus Homo . The animals include Elephas antiquus , Mammuthus primigenius , Equus ferus , Bos primigenius , Cervus elaphus , Capreolus capreolus , and others. A skull of Neanderthal man was found in a grotto on Monte Circeo in Italy on February 25, 1939, by a team of paleontologists headed by Alberto Carlo Blanc dating to about 65 thousand years BP. On May 8, 2021, 9 Neanderthal skeletons were discovered in
1232-559: The Gustaf Line south of the marshes, necessitating an Allied landing at Anzio and Nettuno in an effort to outflank the Germans. Malaria had returned to the Agro Pontino: quinine and other medicines were in short supply or withheld by the Germans, the food was bad, a shortage of metal prevented repair of the screens, and veterans returning from the Balkans brought back resistant strains of
1309-547: The Monti Aurunci in the south) from 15 to 25 km ( 9 + 1 ⁄ 2 to 15 + 1 ⁄ 2 mi). The northwestern border runs approximately from the mouth of the river Astura along the river and from its upper reaches to Cori in the Monti Lepini. The former marsh is a low tract of mainly agricultural reclaimed land created by draining and filling, separated from the sea by sand dunes . The area amounts to about 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres). The Via Appia ,
1386-563: The Orsini and the Colonna . Remains of buildings also exist behind the sand dunes, which possibly mark the line of the channel which separated the island from the mainland, and these may have belonged to the post-station on the Via Severiana . The Tabula Peutingeriana reckons Astura c. 10 km from Antium, which is rather less than the true distance. The island seems to have existed as such in
1463-472: The Vatican . He leased 95 hectares (240 acres) of the marsh near Terracina and established a model farm, "Tenuta Ponte Maggiore". With the help of waterwheels of ancient Egyptian type, revolved by three oxen , he was able to prove that the moorland had a high percentage of organics in its soil, of over 70 points; this proved that three harvests per year were possible. He protected his 80 workers from malaria with
1540-679: The Via Appia and the Via Latina , "the rest of the cities of Latium ... are situated either on these roads or near them, or between them." He lists a number of settlements of the Monti Lepini Land System, from southeast to northwest: Setia , Signa, Privernum , Cora , Pometia , and a number of others in the north of the Roman Campagna on the Via Latina. Pliny the Elder 's statement on
1617-559: The Agro Pontino was restored. In 1947, the province of Littoria, created by Mussolini, was renamed to Latina. The last of the malaria was conquered in the 1950s, with the aid of DDT . Today, a duct system runs through the dried-out area. Wheat, fruit, and wine grapes are cultivated in the Pontine region. The "Agro Pontino" is a flowering landscape with modern cities with both prewar and postwar architecture. By 2000, about 520,000 inhabitants lived in this formerly deserted region. The Battle of
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#17330928426911694-509: The Canale Giuliano and Canale Portatore. Giuliano died in 1516, and the city of Tarracina combined with Sermoneta and Sezze to halt work, over the issue of property rights. The people of the marsh were not going to allow the Medicis to take their land. Popes Martin V , Sixtus V , and Pius VI all attempted to solve the problem. Pius VI reconstructed the road. In 1561, Pope Pius IV employed
1771-622: The Elder ) is an approximately quadrangular area of former marshland in the Lazio Region of central Italy, extending along the coast southeast of Rome about 45 km (28 mi) from just east of Anzio to Terracina (ancient Tarracina), varying in distance inland between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Volscian Mountains (the Monti Lepini in the north, the Monti Ausoni in the center, and
1848-429: The Germans in malariology, but someone on Kesselring's staff—unknown to this day—issued the order. The allies and the Germans equally, therefore, found themselves fighting in a mosquito-infested bog. The new homes were being used as refuges for infantry and cover for tanks. Ernie Pyle relates: "On these little farms of the Pontine marshes Mussolini built hundreds of ... stone farmhouses ... Now and then I saw
1925-601: The Latina Complex, appeared above sea level over the outer karst, enclosing a lagoon . The beaches survive at the Latina Level from about 560 thousand years BP. The Tyrrhenian II transgression of ocean water into the lagoon left the Minturno level and complex, a dune barrier of about 13 m (43 ft), dated 125–100 thousand years BP. Behind the beach, deep peat and clay deposits alternating with alluvial sediments evidence
2002-529: The Mussolini Canal, empties into the Tyrrhenian Sea near Anzio . The project reached a peak in 1933 with 124,000 men employed. The previous agrarian population was moved out under protest in the name of progress. Workers were interned in camps surrounded by barbed wire. The camps were overcrowded, wages were low, hours were long, food was bad, sanitation was poor, healthcare was missing, and medical attention
2079-465: The Pontine marshes" and elsewhere to acquire new supplies, but were met with refusal. The Volsci attempted to exploit this momentary weakness by raising an army of invasion but were struck down by an epidemic, of what sort, or whether historians can conclude to be malaria, remains unsaid. The Romans, buying grain in Sicily, reinforced their colony at Velitrae and planted a colony at Norba , "which thus became
2156-506: The Roman nobility must have had villas there. There is scholarly conflict as to whether there was a town of the name, as asserted by Servius . Up to at least the early 20th century, the remains of only one villa had been found on the island itself, but along the coast c. 1.5 km to the north-west a line of villas begins, which continues as far as Antium. To the south-east, on the other hand, remains are almost entirely absent, and this portion of
2233-551: The Swamps, however, is never quite over; without constant vigilance, dredging the canals, repairing and updating the pumps, and so on, the enemy would soon return. The specter of distant problems remains: the prospect of chemical pollution of the environment, DDT-resistant mosquitoes, and medicine-resistant strains of malaria. 41°28′N 12°54′E / 41.467°N 12.900°E / 41.467; 12.900 Torre Astura Torre Astura , formerly an island called by
2310-516: The Terracina Complex and Level, which began the Holocene about 11700 years BP, was a single ridge behind which clay, peat, and peaty clay were being deposited at sea level. No land was yet above it. The region was a shallow lagoon interspersed with marshland. Fluvial incisions in the beach let out the excess water, which was brackish and contained salt-water mollusks, leading to the question of where
2387-516: The ancients merely Astura ( Greek : Ἄστυρα ), is now a peninsula in the comune of Nettuno , on the coast of Latium , Italy , at the southeast extremity of the Bay of Antium , on the road to Circeii . The name also belongs to a medieval coastal tower in the same site, as well as to the river which rises at the southern foot of the Alban Hills , and has a course of about 33 km before flowing into
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2464-491: The base of the mountains, cutting through a sand dune at Terracina . This would collect the water flowing from the mountain before it reached the lowest levels where it stagnated. The water collected in the canal system would then be pumped into the Mediterranean. The electricity needed to power the canal system would be collected through dams in the mountains with hydroelectric power plants. The German patent office patented
2541-818: The cities which were in his time utterly extinct. and no record seems to have been preserved even of its site. We are, however, distinctly told that the Pomptinus ager and the Pomptine tribe derived their appellation from this city, and there can therefore be no doubt that it stood in that district or on the verge of it. Pontine Marshes The Pontine Marshes ( / ˈ p ɒ n t aɪ n / PON -tyne , US also / ˈ p ɒ n t iː n / PON -teen ; Italian : Agro Pontino [ˈaːɡro ponˈtiːno] , formerly also Paludi Pontine ; Latin : Pomptīnus Ager [ sg. ] by Titus Livius , Pomptīna Palus [ sg. ] and Pomptīnae Paludes [ pl. ] by Pliny
2618-530: The city in a deep cut, and giving it a bend toward Circaeum to make it enter the sea by Tarracina, ...besides this he designed to draw off the water from the marshes about Pomentium and Settia, and to make them solid ground, which would employ many thousands of men in the cultivation ..." In 1298, Pope Boniface VIII had a canal dug to connect the Ninfa River with the Cavata River , which drained much of
2695-501: The coast seems to have been sparsely populated in Roman times. The island was at some time or other joined to the mainland by a bridge or causeway, and it thus became, as it now remains, a peninsula projecting into the sea. It is surmounted by a fortified tower, called the Torre di Astura, a picturesque object, conspicuous both from Antium and the Circeian headland, and the only one which breaks
2772-516: The construction of the Capitoline temple at Rome . This was indeed related by some writers of Apiolae , another city taken by Tarquin, but the current tradition seems to have been that connected with Pometia. The name of Suessa Pometia is only once mentioned before this time, as the place where the sons of Ancus Marcius retired into exile on the accession of Servius . It is clear also that it survived its capture by Tarquin, and even appears again in
2849-538: The disease. The Germans stopped the pumps and opened the dikes, refilling the marsh with brackish water. They were being advised by the German malariologists Erich Martini and Ernst Rodenwaldt that the return of the salt water would encourage the return of the Anopheles labranchiae Mosquito, which thrives in salty environments. The water would also destroy agriculture, removing essential supplies of food and fresh water from
2926-512: The end of the Pliocene about 2.588 million years ago. The natural outcome of this graben topography was the creation of outer barrier islands and a lagoon that gradually filled with runoff sediment transported from the mountains. The rift valley remained a depression in the Tyrrhenian Sea for about two million years and then in the Tuscolano-Artemisio phase, dated 600–360 thousand years BP ,
3003-476: The entire history of the lagoon and marsh from its first formation, when he hunted and fished along its shores. Paleolithic material comes from Campoverde at the north edge of the Pontino Agro. It is dated by typology, as none has been found in context. The assemblage of amateur collections of surface artifacts "shares affinities with various Lower Palaeolithic industries of Latium. Chronologically referred to
3080-456: The excess water came from and why alluvial fans had not buried the region. The answer is in the composition of the Volscian Mountains, which are limestone , porous, and excessively cracked and faulted. All but the heaviest rainfalls sink into the rock only to appear as a large volume of spring and groundwater at the foot of the mountains. Transport of sediment was minimal. In one estimate, 20 m /s (710 cu ft/s) flow from springs over
3157-513: The existing canals open, and reclaim the district exposed to inundation, for a period of 24 years. Donat's plan failed. This time it was not the technical inadequacy as with the predecessors, but political deliberations that stood in the way of the project. The liberal government hesitated and gave the North preference, where large marshes in the valley of the Po also needed to be reclaimed. Violent resistance by
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3234-476: The first of the Roman kings who is mentioned as having made war on the Volsci: Strabo indeed calls it the metropolis of the Volsci, for which we have no other authority; and it is probable that this is a mere inference from the statements as to its great wealth and power. These represent it as a place of such opulence, that it was with the booty derived from thence that Tarquinius was able to commence and carry on
3311-593: The four large property owners in the Pontine Marshes was the reaction to the necessary expropriation and leasing to the German syndicate of a large part of their marsh country. The cofinancer, the Banca Commerciale in Milan , delayed starting the task. Donat, whose lobbying had operated on his own funds, exhausted his wife's fortune of 75,000 gold marks by 1903. Unsuccessful, he returned to Germany. The Pontine Syndicate
3388-422: The incorporation ceremony of the last new city, Pomezia , the project was declared complete. Beginning in 1930, the bonifica idraulica cleared the scrub forest, constructed a total of 16,500 km (10,300 mi) of checkerboard canals and trenches, dredged rivers, diked their banks, filled depressions, and constructed pumping stations to change the elevation in the canals where necessary. The final channel,
3465-557: The lagoon. It was deepest at the Terracina end diminishing to the surface at Cisterna , where beds of travertine , sand fused by volcanic activity, reach the surface. At this time, Latium Vetus had been formed as a volcanic land mass, while Latium Novum was a lagoon, the future marsh. The Tyrrhenian III transgression left the Borgo Ermada Complex and Level, about 90 thousand years BP. It consisted of elongated sand ridges parallel to
3542-475: The lake) was undoubtedly uninhabited except possibly for itinerant fowlers and fishers, but further, any evidence of human activity there would be deep in the underlying peat. In the fringes, however, most anciently at the north edge of the lagoon and in the coastal fringe, in both the Fogliano and Borgo Grappa land systems, evidence of hunting-gathering dates from the Middle Pleistocene . Evidently, man has witnessed
3619-509: The land in the Dukedom of Sermoneta , recently bought by his nephews. The increase in water in the Cavata caused severe flooding in the marsh near Sezze . Before he died in 1447, Pope Eugene IV attempted to solve the now-longstanding water dispute between Sermoneta and Sezze by digging another canal to connect and control the rivers of those regions, but the project ended when he died. Pope Leo X ,
3696-575: The larger one is called the Aufidus (Ufente). It is here that the Appian Way first touches the sea ... Near Tarracina, as you go toward Rome, there is a canal that runs alongside the Appian Way, and is fed at numerous places by waters from the marshes and the rivers ... The boat is towed by a mule." In Strabo's view, Latium extends south of Tarracina to Sinuessa . Through the marsh, with reference to
3773-542: The marsh became infected. Starting in 1922, the Italian government's Department of Health, working with the Opera Nazionale Combattenti, developed a new initiative to combat malaria called the bonifica integrale . It featured three stages, the first being the bonifica idraulica , which would drain the swamp and control the waters. Mussolini and his party called it "the battle of the swamps" because it required
3850-622: The marsh below Sezze . The increased rainfall required to move the sediment is attributed to the Atlantic Period , a time of warmer and moister climate dated around 5000-3000 BC. Pollen from the marsh indicates the replacement of mixed oak by alder and willow . The modern rivers incised the marsh: the Ufente, the Sisto, and the Amaseno, which had shifting rather than stable tributaries. The marsh drains to
3927-601: The marsh has been extensive, including surveys, excavations , and core samples . Four land systems have been defined: Fogliano coastal, the beach system; Borgo Grappa Beach Ridge, the region just inland from the beach, rather extensive in the Circeo section; the Latina Plain, the main part of the fields; and the Monti Lepini, the flank of the mountains. The center of the marsh, earlier the lagoon, although currently urban, does not provide any ancient evidence of habitation. The land (or
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#17330928426914004-501: The monotony of the low and sandy coast between them. The medieval castle of the Frangipani family , in which Conradin vainly sought refuge after the battle of Tagliacozzo in 1268, is built upon the foundations of a very large villa, of opus reticulatum with later additions in brickwork, and with a small harbour attached to it on the south-east. The castle was later a fief of the Caetani ,
4081-400: The mountain-chain, That poisons what so far I’ve been achieving; Were I that noisome pool to drain, 'Twould be the highest, last achieving. Thus space to many millions I will give. Where, though not safe, yet free and active they may live." Near the end of the 19th century, a Prussian officer, Major Fedor Maria von Donat (1847–1919), had an idea; he would build a channel that followed
4158-493: The mountains to find clearly defined outlets to the sea through the barrier dunes. Above sea level, it was a forested swamp; below, it was mud flats and pools. Sparsely inhabited throughout much of their history, the Pontine Marshes were the subject of extensive land reclamation work performed periodically. The tribe of the Volsci began with minor draining projects in the vicinity of Tarracina in connection with their occupation of it in
4235-431: The pre-Roman period. The road proved difficult to keep above water. Under Augustus, a compromise was reached with the construction of a parallel canal. The part of the marsh above sea level was successfully drained by channels, and new agricultural land of legendary fertility came into being. Whenever the channels were not maintained, the swamp reappeared. Meanwhile, frequent epidemics of malaria at Rome and elsewhere kept
4312-574: The project under the number 17,120. He expected to dry out the marshes within a five-year time span. Major von Donat published his idea in Rome and Berlin, and succeeded in gaining the attention of Emil Rathenau , the general manager of AEG in Berlin. Rathenau saw market potential for electric investments, so he and some industrialists in Berlin, as well as private financiers, created the "Pontine Syndicate Ltd" in 1900. Seventy million gold marks were set aside for
4389-491: The project. (With one mark being five grams of pure silver, the amount is equivalent to $ 17.5M in 1900 US dollars.) One of the conditions was that the Italians would have to match the funds on the project. In 1898, Fedor von Donat resigned from his position as battalion commander and moved to Rome with his family. There, he lobbied the government for his project, as well as four large landowners, connections in financial circles, and
4466-427: The reclamation issue alive. Under Benito Mussolini 's regime in the 1930s, the problem was nearly solved by placing dikes and pumping out that portion of the marsh below sea level. It continues to need constant maintenance. Italian confidence in the project was so high, the city placed by Mussolini in 1932 in the center of the marsh, Latina , became the capital of a new province, Latina . The Agro Pontino geologically
4543-540: The recruitment, deployment, and supply of an army of workers. In the second stage, the bonifica agraria , homesteads with stone houses and public utilities were to be constructed and the land was to be parcelled among settlers. The third stage, bonifica igienica , took measures against the mosquitos ( Anopheles labranchiae ), such as screens and whitewash (so the mosquitos could be easily identified and killed), and against malaria, such as distributing quinine and setting up health services. In 1922 also, Benito Mussolini
4620-415: The region with his painter-friend Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein . He reports in his book, The Italian Journey , that they "have never seen so bad of an appearance as they are usually described in Rome". Goethe became interested in the dewatering attempts, after observing that it is "a large and extensive task". He probably used this image in this scene in his Faust II , Act V: "A marsh extends along
4697-523: The same cave by a team of archaeologists. The team concluded that the Neanderthals were killed by a pack of hyenas . The geographers and historians of the early Roman empire describe the marsh. Livy reported that after the Secessio plebis of 494 BC, a strike by the common people for political rights, a famine occurred at Rome due to decreased economic activity. Grain buyers were sent to "the people of
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#17330928426914774-506: The sea immediately to the southeast. It was called Storas ( Στόρας ) by Strabo , who tells us that it had a place of anchorage at its mouth. It was on the banks of this obscure stream that was fought, in 338 BC, the last great battle between the Romans and the Latins , in which the consul Gaius Maenius totally defeated the combined forces of Antium , Lanuvium , Aricia and Velitrae . At
4851-420: The second half of the Middle Pleistocene ;" that is, about 500 thousand years BP. These are primarily flint cores and 5–6 cm (2– 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) flakes , consisting of denticulate tools , side scrapers, borers, retouched flakes, some microliths , and others. Also from Campoverde come animal bones excavated unscientifically from a trench during construction and one human tooth. The latter
4928-416: The services of the mathematician Rafael Bombelli , who had gained a reputation as a hydraulic engineer in reclaiming marshland in the Val di Chiana in the Tuscan Apennines , but the project also came to naught. The ambitious Sixtus V also made unsuccessful attempts at reclamation of the area and died of malaria after a visit to the Pontine Marshes. On February 17, 1787, Johann Wolfgang Goethe visited
5005-450: The shore, 8 to 15 m (26 to 49 ft) high. During the regression phase, fluvial incisions indicate by then at very latest, the lagoon was totally enclosed. After it drained, aeolian (wind-driven) sand covered the notches. At around 22 thousand years BP, the volcanic complex became active for the last time, erupting in hydromagmatic explosions that created the beds of Lakes Albano and Nemi , both crater lakes. The most recent beach,
5082-411: The skeleton of a cow or a horse." The Battle of Anzio left the marsh in the state of devastation; nearly everything Mussolini had accomplished was reversed. The cities were in ruins, the houses blown up, the marshes full of brackish water, the channels filled in, the plain depopulated, the mosquitos flourishing, and malaria on the rise. The major structures for water control survived, and in a few years,
5159-402: The south, the settling of which could provide a new province for Italy without a colonial war. The urbanization of the marshes could prevent emigration of 200,000 Italians. Around 1900, one could count fewer than 1,000 inhabitants for a coastal region larger than 700 km . By a law passed in 1899, the proprietors were bound to arrange for the safe outlet of the water from the mountains, keep
5236-428: The southeast, with channels parallel to the coast, exiting between Circeo and Terracina . Although settlement on the mountain slopes began much earlier, deforestation by the Volsci began in the sixth century BC. The marsh rapidly acquired the alluvial deposits of the Amaseno Fan over the peat, bringing much of it above water. No buried soils indicate any cultivation of dry land in the marsh. Archaeological work on
5313-415: The topic of the marshes: "Another marvel not far from Circello is the Pomptine Marsh, a place that Mucianus , who was three times consul, has reported to be the site of 24 cities. Then comes the river Aufentum, above which is the town of Tarracina ..." is notable for what it does not say, which is the names and locations of the cities. Many more than 24 Roman settlements were built in the marsh, but it
5390-424: The vicinity, an act that had minimal military effect but devastated the population. Although it is true that the bog impeded movement of heavy equipment, the Germans did not flood the marsh for that reason; the equipment under heavy shelling from some of the largest artillery pieces the Germans had was going nowhere, anyway. The flooding was an act of biological warfare and was opposed by former Italian colleagues of
5467-457: The wars of the Republic with the Volscians, as a place of great power and importance. Livy indeed calls it a Colonia Latina , but we have no account of its having become such. It, however, revolted (according to his account) in 503 BC together with Cora and with the assistance of the Aurunci , and was not taken until the following year, by Sp. Cassius, when the city was destroyed and the inhabitants sold as slaves. It nevertheless appears again
5544-413: Was dissolved on September 4, 1914. With it, a premature but bold attempt at a transnational investment to gain more land ended. In 1928, the population of the marshes was 1,637. They were people who lived in shanties across the fields, herded, practiced agriculture, and were in poor health most of the time. The Italian Red Cross related that, during the malaria season, 80% of those having spent one night in
5621-550: Was from thence that, on learning his proscription by the triumvirs, he embarked, with the intention of escaping to join Brutus in Macedonia ; a resolution which he afterwards abandoned. We learn from Suetonius also that Astura was the occasional resort both of Augustus and Tiberius , but due to its unhealthy climate, both Augustus and Tiberius contracted here the illnesses which proved fatal to them. Existing remains show that many of
5698-402: Was lacking. Workers could quit, however, and turnover was high. In 1935, at the completion of the phase, they were all dismissed without notice. Many were infected with malaria. The government placed about 2,000 families (most from northern Italy) in standardised but carefully varied two-storey country houses of blue stucco with tiled roofs. Each settler family was assigned a farmhouse, an oven,
5775-676: Was made prime minister by the king. In 1926, the Department of Health undertook a pilot project of the new strategy in the delta of the Tiber River , reclaiming land and creating 45 new homesteads with great success, after which Mussolini climbed aboard. At his request to the Director-general of the Department of Health, Alessandro Messea submitted a plan for the Pontine Marshes. In 1928, Mussolini brought it before parliament; it became "Mussolini's Law", and began to be implemented in 1929. In 1939, at
5852-413: Was often heavily settled, but the marsh supported no resident population. The underlying landform is a horst – graben , in which expansion of the crust causes a section to drop, creating a rift valley . Underneath the marsh is such a valley, while the steeply-sided Volscian Mountains and the floor under the outer dunes are the corresponding horsts. The graben was formed over a period approximated by
5929-521: Was part of ancient Latium adiectum and still belongs to Lazio . Bordered by the Aurunci Mountains , this land is mainly reclaimed, as well, but the more frequent incursion of hills permitted more dense settlements. Leaving Terracina, the Via Appia crosses it, as well. The marsh was an extensive alluvial plain at about sea level (some above, some below) created by the failure of the streams draining
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