Mutina
Mutina, located in Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy, is a historically significant city that played a pivotal role during various critical moments in Roman history. Originally inhabited by the Etruscans, it later came under the control of the Gallic Boii and was incorporated into the Roman Republic in 218 BC. The city gained prominence due to its strategic position along the Via Aemilia, which connected key cities in the region. By 183 BC, Mutina had achieved the status of a Roman citizen colony, although it faced challenges, including a sack by the Ligurians in 177 BC.
Mutina is notably remembered for its involvement in the civil war of 43 BC, where Octavian, the future Augustus, emerged as a key player by defeating Mark Antony’s forces besieging Decimus Junius Brutus. This battle led to significant political changes in the Republic, as both consuls were killed, leaving Octavian in control. The city maintained its prosperity through agriculture and a ceramics industry, remaining a place of historical interest well into the later periods of Roman rule, including its use as a site for exile during the late Roman Empire. Today, remnants of its ancient past can still be seen, including an amphitheater located beneath modern structures.
Subject Terms
Mutina
(Modena)
A city of Cisalpine Gaul (north Italy), south of the river Padus (Po). Situated twenty-three miles northwest of the Etruscans' northern capital Felsina (Bononia, Bologna), Mutina too had an Etruscan name, and finds of Etruscan objects occur in its neighborhood. Subsequently the place passed into the hands of the Gallic tribe of the Boii, and then came under Roman control in 218 BC.
Deriving importance from its position on the Via Aemilia (187) leading from Ariminum (Rimini) to Placentia (Piacenza) (after which the district Emilia-Romagna is still named), Mutina became a Roman citizen colony in 183, but was sacked by the Ligurians in 177. Thereafter, however, it was immediately restored, and prospered from its wine, wool, and fruit. In 78 Marcus Junius Brutus (father of Caesar's assassin), who supported the revolutionary Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (father of the triumvir), was driven into Mutina by government forces under the young Pompey (later the Great) and after a considerable siege, surrendered on terms: whereupon Pompey had him murdered. It was also at Mutina, in 72, that Spartacus, the leader of the slave revolt, routed an army led by Gaius Cassius, governor of Cisalpine Gaul.
But the city's most famous moment came in 43, after the assassination of Caesar, when the twenty-year-old Octavian (the future Augustus) began to emerge as a rival to Antony, and gained the support of the senate. While Antony was besieging Decimus Junius Brutus (who had been appointed governor of Cisalpine Gaul) at Mutina, the two consuls and Octavian defeated him in two battles at Forum Gallorum (Castelfranco) between Mutina and Bononia, and he fled with difficulty across the Alps. But the battle was chiefly historic because both consuls were killed, so that Octavian was left in sole control of the armies of the Republic.
A local ceramics industry is recorded by Pliny the Elder, and funeral monuments attest continuing prosperity. In AD 377 Frigeridus, general of the emperor Gratian, selected Mutina as one of the places of exile where the survivors of the defeated German tribe of the Taifali—notorious, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, for pederasty—were sent to settle and work in the fields. The site of an ancient amphitheater has been located beneath the Chamber of Commerce.