FALERII NOVI (Fabrica di Roma)

When the Roman troops managed to take Falerii by force, bastioned of course, in the year 241 B.C. (today’s Civita Castellana), they forced the population to move to the plains approximately 5 km away. Here, out of nothing the second town of Falerii was born. To distinguish it from the first town, intellectuals called it Falerii Novi. Its ruins are grand: a wall belt in a trapezoid form that is perfectly preserved. It is made up of great red tuff blocks, a square measuring 2108 m with 50 square towers and a ditch on the eastern side. To gain access and to exit it there were nine doors that were always defended at the sides by the protruding towers. The main entrances were four, two of which were important main roads of the falisco land. On the inside of the urban area were the axes of Cardo (Via Consular Amerina) and of Decumanus.
Among the most interesting are: the so-called Jupiter Door, that in using the arch, it is one of the first examples of Etruria and in the keystone is a head that has been established as that of the god; (Porta Bove), Ox Door (southern corner) with its upper ashlar and the head of a bull.
The archeological remains that were excavated mainly in the last century were very often buried (the entire urban area is today a stretch of cultivated land), but traces of the urban area are clearly visible, the theatre, the city roads. The most visible monument is the Romanesque church of S. Maria of Falerii and the complex abbey next to it is all that remains of this city that was detroyed by the Normans in the X century and so abandoned, regiving a new life to Civita Castellana, ancient centre of fathers.
The necropoli (IV-III cent. B.C.) surrounding the urban area are especially on the steep sides facing the Rio Purgatorio and Pradoro: hypogeums preceded by a dromos with simple funeral cells and niches along the walls. Some tombs have a porched entrance and columns or pillars in the centre of the burial chamber.