The ''Silva Ciminia'', the Ciminian Forest, was the unbroken primeval forest that separated

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

from

Etruria Etruria ( ) was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that f ...

. According to the Roman historian

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

it was, in the 4th century BCE, a feared, pathless wilderness in which few dared tread.

History

The Ciminian Forest received its name from the Monti Cimini, which are still a densely wooded range of

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

hills northwest of

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. They form the part of the forerange of the Apennine main range that faces towards the

Tyrrhenian Sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (, ; or ) , , , , is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenians, Tyrrhenian people identified with the Etruscans of Italy. Geography The sea is bounded by the islands of C ...

. In the south, the ''Silva Ciminia'' stretched from Lake Bracciano to the edges of the flat plain of the Roman Campagna, in the lower Tiber Valley. Stretches of cleared fields round the major Etruscan settlements formed the ''Ager Veientanus'' that supported

Veii Veii (also Veius; ) was an important ancient Etruscan city situated on the southern limits of Etruria and north-northwest of Rome, Italy. It now lies in Isola Farnese, in the comune of Rome. Many other sites associated with and in the city-st ...

, the ''Ager Faliscus'' of the

Falisci The Falisci were an Italic peoples, Italic tribe who lived in what is now northern Lazio, on the Etruscan side of the Tiber River. They spoke an Italic languages, Italic language, Faliscan language, Faliscan, closely related to Latin. Origina ...

, and the ''Ager Capenas'' of Capena. In the heart of the Ciminian woodlands lay the Ciminus Lake ( Lago di Vico). In the northwest, they reached as far as

Tarquinia Tarquinia (), formerly Corneto, is an old city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Central Italy, known chiefly for its ancient Etruscans, Etruscan tombs in the widespread necropolis, necropoleis, or cemeteries. Tarquinia was designated as a ...

. The forest was predominantly formed by

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

and

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

, though second growth in the lower slopes has favoured the aggressively re-seeding Spanish chestnut. A relict stand of beech, rare in

Central Italy Central Italy ( or ) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first-level NUTS region with code ITI, and a European Parliament constituency. It has 11,704,312 inhabita ...

, remains on the upper slopes of Monte Cimino. Sub-fossil pollen analyses from cores of stratified sediment taken in the region's crater lakes typically reveal a pollen sequence characteristic of

tundra In physical geography, a tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: #Arctic, Arctic, Alpine tundra, Alpine, and #Antarctic ...

lying over an all-but-sterile wind-blown

loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...

sand; this in turn was followed by grassland, with pollen of water-lilies and pondweeds blown from glacial meltwater lakes. The earliest Holocene forest was

fir Firs are evergreen coniferous trees belonging to the genus ''Abies'' () in the family Pinaceae. There are approximately 48–65 extant species, found on mountains throughout much of North and Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa. The genu ...

, followed by mixed pine and oak, with a climax forest of beech and oak, including ''

Quercus ilex ''Quercus ilex'', the holly oak, also (ambiguously, as many oaks are evergreen) evergreen oak, is a large evergreen oak native to the Mediterranean region. It is a member of the section (botany), section ''List of Quercus species#Section Ilex, Il ...

''. The surface profiles have been transformed since the region was first deforested in Roman times, as settlers worked outwards from strips flanking the

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

s — the

via Cassia The Via Cassia () was an important Roman road striking out of the Via Flaminia near the Milvian Bridge in the immediate vicinity of Rome and, passing not far from Veii, traversed Etruria. The ''Via Cassia'' passed through Baccanae, Sutrium ...

, the via Amerina and the

via Flaminia The Via Flaminia () was an ancient Roman roads, Roman road leading from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to ''Ariminum'' (Rimini) on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, and due to the ruggedness of the mountains was the major option the Romans had f ...

— which had been struck through the forest. In the deforested slopes, streams with even moderate flow have cut deeply eroded gullies and valleys in the geologically very recent soft

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock co ...

and volcanic ash. A sudden increase in organic sediments in strata corresponding to the third century BCE records this

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...

following agrarian deforestation, which, far downstream, would initiate the

Tiber The Tiber ( ; ; ) is the List of rivers of Italy, third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the R ...

's delta. Thereafter the palynological record attests many cultivated plants, and, significantly, nettles, the weed of disturbed, untended corners that follows temperate agriculture everywhere. By the third and fourth centuries CE very little of the primeval forest survived. To the Romans of the Republic, the forest was as much feared as the trackless

Hercynian Forest The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched across Western Central Europe, from North French Scarplands, Northeastern France to the Carpathian Mountains, including most of Southern Germany, though its boundaries are a mat ...

would be when they encountered that. In 310 BCE the

Roman Senate The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Sena ...

, even after the rout of the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( ) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in List of ancient peoples of Italy, ancient Italy, with a common language and culture, and formed a federation of city-states. Af ...

at Sutrium, charged the consul Fabius Maximus Rullianus not to enter this woodland in pursuit of the Etruscans, and when it emerged that he had done so, all Rome was struck with terror. The Silva formed a natural barrier between

and Etruria.J. B. Ward-Perkins, ''Landscape and History in Central Italy''.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ciminia, Silva Old-growth forests Forests of Italy Former forests Falisci