" And again
he says: "Umbria lies along the eastern boundary of Tyrrhenia and
beginning from the Apennines, or rather beyond these mountains
(extends) as far as the Adriatic. For commencing from Ravenna the
Umbri inhabit the neighbouring country ... all allow that Umbria
extends as far as Ravenna, as the inhabitants are Umbri."
[Footnote 1: Strabo _ut supra_.]
We may take it, then, that when Rome annexed Ravenna it was a city of
the Umbri, and we may dismiss Pliny's statement[1] that it was a
Sabine city altogether for it is both improbable and inexplicable.
[Footnote 1: Pliny, III. 15; v. 20.]
When Ravenna received a Roman colony we do not know, for though Strabo
states this fact, he does not tell us when it occurred and we have no
other means of knowing. All we can be reasonably sure of is that this
Umbrian city on the verge of Cisalpine Gaul, hemmed in on the west by
the Lingonian Gauls, received a Roman colony certainly not before 268
B.C. when Ariminum was occupied. The name of Ravenna, however, does
not occur in history till a late period of the Roman republic, and the
first incident in which we hear of Ravenna having any part occurs in
82 B.
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