INDUSTRIA
(Monteu da Po) Piedmont, Italy.
A Roman colony of the Augustan Regio IX, perhaps
contemporary with Valentia, Pollentia, and Hasta, all of
which were enrolled in the tribus Pollia. It seems to have
had assigned to it all the districts of Roman citizens in
Cisalpine Gaul before the social war. The settlement,
dating to the century prior to the social war, developed
on either side of the road which follows the right bank
of the Po and led from Augusta Taurinorum to Vardagate and from there to Valentia and Vercellae. The Ligurian name of Bodincomago by which Industria was
called earlier, according to Pliny (
3.5.20, 21), demands
the existence on the same spot of a pre-Roman
settlement, but evidence is lacking.
The regularity, which has been seen from an examination of the known elements (few remains of poorly identified buildings and streets) and the military considerations attendant upon building a city on one of the major
roads of access to W Cisalpine Gaul, make it possible to
conjecture a regular grid plan and the existence of a
fortification wall. The existence of the wall would appear
to be confirmed by the discovery of a tower, closed by a
double wall of loose rubble core with facing in opus incertum. A complex erroneously thought to be a theater
has recently been identified as a cult building, a sanctuary extra moenia dedicated perhaps to Isis and dating
to the 2d c. of the Empire. From there come valuable
bronze figures, some produced in local shops, now in the
Museo di Antichità in Turin. The imposing monumental
remains, the richness and the value of the recovered figures, and the numerous inscriptions document the floruit
of urban life in the centuries of the Empire. We do not
yet know the extent of the settlement which, beyond the
road to Casale, must have joined the ancient bed of the
Po river, 1 km S of the present course. The necropolis
has also been tentatively placed; a late tomb was set over
the ruins of a sanctuary of Isis on its S edge.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Fabretti, “Dell'antica città di Industria detta prima Bodincomago,”
ASPABA (1880) 44ff;
F. Gabotto, “I municipi romani dell'Italia occidentale,”
Biblioteca Soc. Storica Bibliografica Subalpina 33 (1908)
280; E. Durando, “Scavi archeologici nel sito dell'Antica
città di Industria,”
ASPABA (1913) 117ff; P. Barocelli,
“Monteu da Po: scoperte nel territorio dell'antica Industria,”
NSc (1914) 185, 441; U. Erwin, “The early colonisation of the Cisalpine Gaul,”
BSR (1952) 54ff; P. Fraccaro, “Un episodio dell'agitazione agraria dei Gracchi”
Studies . . . D. M. Robinson (1953) 884ff; M. Barra
Bagnasco et al.,
Scavi nell'anea dell'antica Industria
(Memorie Acc. Scienza Torino; 1967) 4, n. 13; id. et
al., “Notizia degli scavi nell'area dell'antica Industria,”
BSPABA (1968) 47ff.
S. FINOCCHI
