The Fossa di Catilina

Where Roman history and local tradition merge in a remote corner of the Mugello Apennines

The Place and the Mystery of the Name

An ancient place name linking the Valle del Diaterna to one of the most controversial figures of Republican Rome

Near Castelvecchio, atop the Apennine ridge separating the Valle del Diaterna from the Emilian plain, there has been from time immemorial a place called La Fossa di Catilina. The name already appears in Emanuele Repetti's Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della Toscana, which cites it as one of the characteristic topographic features of the area around Castelvecchio — a presence so deeply rooted in local memory that it survived for centuries in everyday speech.

The reference is to Lucius Sergius Catilina (Rome, 108 BC – Pistoia, 62 BC), a Roman general and politician known for the conspiracy that bears his name: an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, uncovered and exposed by Cicero in 63 BC. Forced to flee, Catiline took refuge in Etruria, where his lieutenant Gaius Manlius — perhaps a native of the area around Fiesole — was raising an army of rebels, Sullan veterans and common people weary of the abuses of the aristocracy. After Sulla's death the people of Fiesole decided to support the rebel Catiline, weary of the hardship that followed Roman domination. Great unrest shook the whole Mugello, Etruria and Fiesole in particular.

Catiline's army gathered in the mountains above Fiesole, but the arrival in Florence of Marcus Petreius' troops and, from the north, those of the consul Quintus Metellus caught the rebels in a vice, so that Catiline was forced to flee towards Pistoia with about a hundred loyal men. Crossing these places before the final battle, his troops left so strong a mark on collective memory that the area still bears his name.

The Conspiracy and the End

From the failure of the conspiracy to the battle of Pistoia: the final act of an episode that marked the late Roman Republic

Lucius Sergius Catilina was born in Rome in 108 BC into a patrician family of ancient lineage. The conspiracy was uncovered by Cicero, then consul in office. Many conspirators were arrested and sentenced to death, but Catiline managed to flee towards Etruria. There he tried to raise an army strong enough to march on Rome, gathering veterans in financial straits and farmers exasperated by senatorial policy.

The final squeeze came in the winter of 62 BC: finding the Via Emilia blocked at Bologna by three legions under the propraetor of Cisalpine Gaul, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, Catiline decided to fight. On 5 January 62 BC the final act of the Catilinarian conspiracy was played out. The troops of Lucius Sergius Catilina clashed with the Roman army led by the lieutenant Marcus Petreius near Pistoia.

The battle was fierce and desperate. Sallust, a witness to the mentality of his age, left one of the most intense descriptions in Latin literature: each man covered with his body, now that life was lost, roughly the place he had held while alive during the fighting. Of the whole army no free citizen was taken prisoner, either in battle or in flight. Catiline was found among the enemy dead, still alive but mortally wounded, his face bearing — again according to Sallust — the same fierceness with which he had fought.

Some historians hold that the nearby locality of Petroio took its name from the passage of Marcus Petreius in pursuit, or at any rate from the presence of one of his temporary camps. That these valleys really did see the rebel troops pass in the weeks before the battle is historically plausible: the ridges of the Valle del Diaterna were crossed by fugitives heading for Gaul before the routes were blocked.

History and Legend

Between popular memory and historical research

The place name Fossa di Catilina belongs to that class of names which popular tradition has preserved for centuries, regardless of verifiable historical truth. As happens in many places in the Apennines, where Roman, medieval and Renaissance legends overlay real events, it is hard to establish whether the name derives from an actual episode — the passage or halt of Catilinarian units in this area — or is instead a name formed over the centuries by assonance or suggestion.

What is certain is that the Mugello and the Florentine Apennines were a real setting for Catiline's affair: his lieutenant Gaius Manlius recruited men in these lands, the rebel troops moved between Fiesole and the Apennine passes, and local tradition has kept a living memory of that passage. The Fossa di Catilina, then, whether or not it stands at the exact site of a documented episode, is a precious witness to how the collective memory of these valleys has kept alive its bond with a thousand-year-old history.

The place is reached along the paths that climb from the village of Castelvecchio up the Apennine ridge towards the border with Emilia-Romagna. The landscape, essentially unchanged over the centuries, offers a unique perspective on these remote valleys where history and nature are inseparably interwoven.