Mevania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mevania (modern Bevagna), an ancient Roman town and municipium of (Umbria), in the Augustan Regio VI. It lay on the western branch of the Via Flaminia, 13 km (8 mi) WSW of Forum Flaminii where the branches rejoin.
In 310 BC the consul Fabius broke the Umbrian forces here; but otherwise it is not mentioned until the 1st century A.D. In 69 the army of Vitellius awaited here the advance of Vespasian.
Pastures near the Tinia river and the white oxen of the Clitumnus (modern. Clitunno) River are mentioned by Propertius, whose family was from the area (from Assisium, Hispellum, or Mevania itself): they may refer to Mevania. Mevania is specifically mentioned by the later writers Silius Italicus, Lucan and Statius.
There are important remains of a temple near the north gate, of a theatre built into modern houses in the (misnamed) via dell' Anfiteatro, lesser remains of a second temple in the church of S. Vincenzo near the east gate, mosaics belonging to midsized baths in the via Porta Guelfa, and very scanty remains of an amphitheatre at some distance from the modern town. The original walls, which have disappeared, were, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv.173), built of unbaked bricks. The town now has a complete circuit of medieval stone walls that are said to be very near, if not identical with, the Roman walls.
