1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Atina

ATINA, the name of three ancient towns of Italy.

1. A town (mod. Àtena) of Lucania, upon the Via Popillia, 7 m. N. of Tegianum, towards which an ancient road leads, in the valley of the river now known as Diano. Its ancient importance is vouched for by its walls of rough cyclopean work, which may have had a total extent of some 2 m. (see G. Patroni in Notizie degli scavi, 1897, 112; 1901, 498). The date of these walls has not as yet been ascertained, recent excavations, which led to the discovery of a few tombs in which the earliest objects showing Greek influence may go back to the 7th century B.C., not having produced any decisive evidence on the point. To the Roman period belong the remains of an amphitheatre and numerous inscriptions.

2. A town (mod. Atina) of the Volsci, 12 m. N. of Casinum, and about 14 m. E. of Arpinum, on a hill 1607 ft. above sea-level. The walls, of carefully worked polygonal blocks of stone, are still preserved in parts, and the modern town does not fill the whole area which they enclose. Cicero speaks of it as a prosperous country town, which had not as yet fallen into the hands of large proprietors; and inscriptions show that under the empire it was still flourishing. One of these last is a boundary stone relating to the assignation of lands in the time of the Gracchi, of which six other examples have been found in Campania and Lucania.

3. A town of the Veneti, mentioned by Pliny, H. N. iii. 131.