Sailing Along the Coast of North Etruria: Ancient Perceptions Versus Multidisciplinary Coastal Landscape Studies

Abstract

Abstract Aim of this contribution is to demonstrate how digital methods, in combination with traditional sources, can effectively contribute to reconstruct a narrative of the past based on a sensory account of a few coastal landscapes in Northwestern Etruria as they were perceived and described by ancient authors. A few passages by Strabo (Geogr. 5.2.5, 222C, Augustan period) and Rutilius Namatianus (de reditu suo, early fifth-century CE) are examined, in order to understand how these authors perceived, either through previous sources or by autopsy, the river network and some coastal landscapes in Northwestern Etruria. The study of these passages is compared with the output of recent integrated research in the same districts described by the ancient authors. Areas of particular interest have been selected, for which landscape archaeology provides evidence of their long-term history, based on integrated palaeogeographic, historical and archaeological research including geomorphologic and palaeoenvironmental changes, exploitation of natural resources, urban forms, type and distribution of settlements. As for Strabo and Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, both authors relayed on their personal experience and on previous writers, but certainly chose to describe specific aspects characterising our case-study areas. In the frame of different literary genres, they provide descriptions based on their perceptions and also on their culture.