La Civita in the Valley of the Sabato

Extract

In the upper valley of the river Sabato, eight kilometres above Serino, the mountains close in on either side and at the narrowest part an irregular rounded spur juts out on the east bank. The Sabato flows at its foot, and two torrent beds, cut through the neck of the land behind, almost isolate the hill from the main mountain range; a ring of grey stone walls rising from the edge of its steep sides encloses the level ground of its summit. The ruin, marked on the survey map by an arbitrary line, is there called Civita; in the neighbourhood, as well as in such notices of it as appear in books, it shares this name with the less vague one of Sabazia. My attention was drawn to the site by Commendatore Orilia, who had himself some time ago published upon it an article in which he argued against the correctness of the name Sabatia or Sabazia and put forward the suggestion that this might be Picentia, the chief town of the Picentini after the year 260 B.C.