Heba (Etruria)

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Etruria in Augustan times with Heba at the lower edge of the picture

Heba was a Roman colony in Etruria . The settlement was founded in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. BC and was located on a hill southeast of Magliano in Toscana in the province of Grosseto .

The name of the place as Heba is secured by an inscription on a found cippus made of travertine , which is kept in Magliano. The inscription, which can be dated between the second half of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd century AD, is dedicated to the genius of the Heba colony. Claudius Ptolemy mentions Heba in his atlas Geographike Hyphegesis , describes it in Greek as ηβα and locates the colony between Vulci and Saturnia . Pliny names the place Herba in his encyclopedia Naturalis historia . Since the community still bore the title Colonia in the 2nd century AD , Roman citizens were evidently settled here.

Aerial photos of Heba show the typical orthogonal city plan of a Roman city with cardo and decumanus . You can see a forum near the intersection of Cardo and Decumanus and to the west of the forum some public buildings. A residential area with private houses could also be discovered in the aerial photographs. So far, only a few remains of wall structures and architectural elements have been exposed. One of the epigraphic finds is the so-called Tabula Hebana , a bronze plaque that is currently kept in the Archaeological Museum of Grosseto . The inscription contains provisions for funeral services to commemorate Germanicus and new regulations for the electoral process of praetors and consuls .

In the vicinity of Heba there was an Etruscan necropolis from the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Therefore one can assume that there was an Etruscan predecessor settlement, which was probably called Hepa . The lead plate discovered on site by Magliano with an inscription in Etruscan script is of great importance for understanding the Etruscan language .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Claudius Ptolemy, Geographike Hyphegesis III, 1, 43.
  2. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 3, 52.
  3. ^ Ambros Josef Pfiffig : The expansion of the Roman urban system in Etruria and the question of the subjugation of the Etruscans . Olschki, Florenz 1966, p. 52.
  4. ^ Giuliano Bonfante , Larissa Bonfante : The Etruscan Language. An Introduction. 2nd Edition. Manchester University Press, Manchester / New York 2002, ISBN 0719055407 , p. 222.

Coordinates: 42 ° 35 '  N , 11 ° 18'  E