Patavium
Patavium, known today as Padua, is a historic city located in the region of Veneto in northeastern Italy. Originally founded by the local Veneti people around 350 BC, it is steeped in myth, with legends attributing its establishment to Antenor, a figure from Trojan lore. The city gained prominence due to its strategic location along key trade routes, including the Via Annia, which facilitated commerce and interaction with Rome. Patavium became an ally of Rome during the Second Punic War and was later granted municipal status around 41 BC.
The city is noted for its rich cultural heritage, including annual festivals and theatrical performances that celebrated its mythological founder. Strabo praised Patavium for its wealth in textiles, particularly wool products, and highlighted its notable population of Roman knights. Archaeological evidence reveals remnants of its ancient structures, such as a river port, amphitheater, and traces of Roman and Venetian funerary art. Additionally, Patavium was known for its medicinal springs, which were historically significant and attracted attention from figures like Emperor Tiberius. Overall, Patavium's blend of historical, cultural, and economic attributes makes it a significant location in the study of ancient Italian history.
Subject Terms
Patavium
(Padova, Padua)
A city of the Veneti (the modern Veneto) in Cisalpine Gaul (northeastern Italy), at the eastern extremity of the Padus (Po) plain. Strabo indicates that it was served by the river Medoacus or Meduacus (probably the Bacchiglione, although a branch of the Brenta—which has changed course—has also been suggested); there are also ancient references to streams named Etron or Reton and Togisonus which flowed through marshes to debouch into a large maritime harbor.
According to a myth current in Roman times, the founder of Patavium was Antenor of Troy, who after the Trojan War was said to have brought the Eneti (Veneti) from Paphlagonia (northern Asia Minor) and to have settled them in Venetia, at the head of the Adriatic; festivals held at Patavium every year, at which tragedies were performed, were also ascribed to Antenor's initiative. But it was, in fact, the local Veneti—possibly a people of Illyrian extraction—who founded the city; and in c 350 BC, or a little later, it replaced Ateste (Este) as their principal settlement.
In 302/3 Patavium successfully resisted an attack from the Spartan Cleonymus, preserving his body in a temple of Juno and celebrating the victory thereafter in an annual regatta. In the early third century the Patavians became allies of Rome, maintaining their loyalty in the Second Punic War (218–201), which earned them a treaty (foedus) conferring autonomy. However, a rising had to be put down in 174. The city gained importance from its position on a number of roads, including the Via Annia (c 153 which continued the Via Flaminia and Via Popillia to Aquileia). During the civil war between Caesar and Pompey the Great (49), despite the receipt of favors from the former, Patavium took the side of Pompey, thus earning Cicero's praise.
It had become a municipium by c 41, when its inhabitants suffered oppression from Gaius Asinius Pollio, governor of Cisalpine Gaul, who later criticized his fellow historian Livy, the region's greatest son (b. 54), for provincialism which he labelled `Patavinitas.’ Strabo alluded to the quantities of clothing and other goods Patavium sent to the Roman market: it specialized in wool for rough cloaks and carpets. He also commented on the unparalleled number of its Roman knights (equites)—totalling no less than five hundred—and pronounced the city to be the greatest in northern Italy, a primacy which it lost shortly afterward, however. Pliny the Younger referred to its wine, of which the bouquet recalled the smell of willow trees, and he and Martial stressed the strait-laced morality of its citizens and propriety of its women. Thrasea Paetus, an upright Republican who met his death under Nero (AD 66) came from Patavium, and so did the historian and literary critic Asconius (d. 76).
The structures of the river port have been identified, as well as meagre traces of an amphitheater and theater. Air photography has recently revealed the territorial divisions (centuriation) and military installations of Patavium's territory. Light has also been cast on the blend of Venetian and Roman elements in the funerary art of the city. It owned the medicinal springs dedicated to the local deity Aponus (Abano; who figures prominently in Patavian inscriptions) at the foot of the Euganean hills; according to Suetonius, the emperor Tiberius (14–37) was advised to throw gold coins into the springs.