Ateste () (modern Este,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

) was an ancient town of Venetia, at the southern foot of the Euganean hills, 43 feet above sea-level and 22 miles southwest of

Patavium Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

(modern

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

). The site was occupied in very early times, as archaeology begun in the late 19th century showed.

Overview

Large

cemeteries A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many dead people are buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ) implies th ...

have been excavated, which show three different periods from the 8th century BCE down to the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

domination: * I. Italic

cremation Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...

burials closely approximating to the Villanova type; * II.

Venetic Venetic ( ) is an extinct Indo-European language, most commonly classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po ...

period, when tombs are constructed of blocks of stone, and situlae (bronze buckets), sometimes elaborately decorated, are often used to contain the funerary urns; * III. Gallic period (beginning in the 4th century BCE), when tombs are much poorer,

ossuaries An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years th ...

being of badly baked rough clay, with traces of Gallic influence characteristic of

La Tène culture The La Tène culture (; ) was a Iron Age Europe, European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman Republic, Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age ...

; cremation also continues. The many important objects found in these excavations are preserved in the local museum.G. Ghirardini in Notizie degli Scavi; Monumenti del Lincei, ii. (1893) 161 seq., vii. (1897) 5 seq., x. (1901) 5 seq.; Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Rome, 1904), v. 279 seq. Inscriptions show that the

Venetic language Venetic ( ) is an extinct Indo-European language, most commonly classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po ...

asserted its existence even after Ateste came into the hands of the Romans. When this occurred is not known. Boundary stones of 135 BCE exist, which divide the territory of Ateste from that of Patavium and of Vicetia, showing that the former extended from the middle of the Euganean hills to the ''Atesis'' (modern

Adige The Adige is the second-longest river in Italy, after the Po. It rises near the Reschen Pass in the Vinschgau in the province of South Tyrol, near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland, and flows through most of northeastern Italy ...

, from which Ateste no doubt took its name, and on which it once stood). After the

battle of Actium The Battle of Actium was a naval battle fought between Octavian's maritime fleet, led by Marcus Agrippa, and the combined fleets of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC in the Ionian Sea, near the former R ...

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

settled veterans from several of his legions in this territory, Ateste being thenceforth spoken of as a colony ''( colonia)''. It appears to have furnished many recruits, especially for the ''

cohortes urbanae The ''cohortes urbanae'' (Latin meaning ''urban cohorts'') of ancient Rome were created by Augustus to counterbalance the enormous power of the Praetorian Guard in the city of Rome and serve as a police service. They were led by the Praefectus ...

'', an urban police force created by Augustus. Ateste appears but little in history, though its importance is vouched for by numerous inscriptions, the majority of which belong to the early

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

References

Roman sites of Veneto Villanovan culture Este culture {{Veneto-geo-stub