Spina
Spina is an ancient city located on the Adriatic coast of northeastern Italy, specifically in the Emilia-Romagna region. Historically, it is situated about four miles west of Comacchio and was established around 520–500 BC, likely as a port that united pre-existing villages. The site has a rich heritage that predates both Etruscan and Greek influences, with early legends attributing its founding to various groups, including the Pelasgians and Thessalians. Spina was notable for its unique cohabitation of Greek and Etruscan cultures, contrasting with the increasingly hostile relations between these peoples elsewhere in Italy during that period.
Archaeological evidence suggests that while Spina had significant Greek influence—evidenced by the discovery of a wealth of Greek pottery—the Etruscans were the dominant force in the community. Spina served as a crucial trading hub, linking Etruscan cities to Greek goods, while also being connected to another city, Atria, via a navigable canal. Despite its prominence, Spina eventually fell to the Gauls by the mid-fourth century, leading to its decline into insignificance by the time of the Roman geographer Strabo. The remains of this once-thriving settlement, including extensive archaeological finds, can be explored today at the Museo Archeologico di Spina in Ferrara.
Subject Terms
Spina
A city on the Adriatic coast of northeastern Italy (Emilia-Romagna) four miles west of the modern town of Comacchio, where the mouth of a branch of the delta of the river Padus (Po) formed a harbor in a sea lagoon
The name Spina antedates the Etruscans and Greeks, and presupposes a period of previous occupation by the tribe of the Veneti. According to Greek legends, however, the founders were variously described as Pelasgians (a vague term for aboriginal peoples) or Thessalians, but the origins of the place were also ascribed to the Greek hero Diomedes, who, according to epic myth, came to Italy after the Trojan War.
About 520–500 BC, the villages already existing on the site became united to form the port of Spina. Covering an extent of more than seven hundred acres on a line of dunes between the lagoon and the coast (which has receded since then), and thus possessing useful natural defences against attackers from the mainland—with which it was only connected by narrow tongues of ground—Spina enjoyed good fishing facilities in the lagoon and owned riverside grain fields.
The place derives special interest from its apparently friendly joint habitation by Greeks and Etruscans—at the very time when, in Campania on the other side of Italy, relations between the two peoples were becoming increasingly hostile. The abundance of Greek pottery at Spina, reaching its climax in 475/450—and revealing a greater number of fine Athenian vases than any other known site—might seem to suggest Greek predominance, as could Spina's unusual distinction of possessing its own sanctuary at Delphi; it has been suggested, therefore, that the port may have been a Greek foundation, which admitted Etruscan families, however, from neighboring centers. But archaeological evidence indicates that, in this early fifth century, the Etruscans were in fact the dominant partners, since Spina, with its extensive marine and river communications, served as the principal source of overseas supplies for their leading north Italian city-state of Felsina (Bononia). On balance, therefore, it would seem probable that the Greek settlement was a trading colony lodged within, or adjacent to, a community that possessed a basically Etruscan character.
Spina may have been founded to attract Greek goods in competition with a second mixed foundation, Atria (Adria), at the northern end of the Po delta. Nevertheless, the two cities were linked by a navigable canal, and perhaps collaborated with one another to ensure the policing of the Adriatic. In this task Spina was helped by the Veneti, who also provided merchants with horses for export. But well before the middle of the fourth century, like other parts of north Italy, the place had fallen to the Gauls, and by the time of Strabo it was merely an insignificant village far from the sea. As the early church of Santa Maria in Padotevere testifies, however, habitation continued.
As land reclamation and air photography have shown, the marshy site of Spina, protected by complex palisades and earthern ramparts, was centered on a long canal, a hundred feet across. This was constructed to widen the channel between the sea and a lagoon that lay behind the coastline; and it received the influx of many lesser waterways crossed by bridges and flanked by wooden houses, constructed on piles according to a rectangular grid plan. Among recent discoveries on the floors of these houses are the remains of a straw basket. The principal cemeteries of Spina lay to the north, in the Trebba and Rega valleys, beside the middle branch of the river delta (the Old Po). The extensive finds of Greek pottery and other objects that the site has yielded are to be seen in the Museo Archeologico di Spina at Ferrara.