The city of Terni is now the main population center of the basin of the same name and one of the most important and populous cities in Central Italy and the Apennine area. It is developed on a plain to the right of the Nera River, in an area at the confluence of the Velino and Valnerina valleys, where the valley floors intersect the important Apennine natural corridors such as the Naia valley, the middle Tiber and the Clitunno valleys, historically crossed by the main communication routes of central Italy.
The earliest archaeological finds, testifying to a stable human presence in the area, emerged from some peripheral excavations and date from the Copper and Iron Ages. After the first half of the 3rd century B.C., the Romans founded a colony in Nequinate territory, near Narni, under the name of Interamna. The colony was later included in the Augustan age in Regio VI. Interamna became the seat of a Christian diocese from the second century and, after suffering the ravages of barbarian invasions, it saw in the Middle Ages the domination of the Lombards of Spoleto at first, then freedom as a free municipality rebelling against the Papal State, with the Ghibelline party of the city always at its head, until the final annexation to the Papal State, which took place under Pope Pius IV in 1563.
Throughout the ancient age Terni was a thriving medium-sized city in the Umbrian countryside until, in the 19th century, industrial and railroad development at first, and the establishment of the province of the same name later, brought the city, in a relatively short period of time, to a radical change in its economy and social balance.Maria Rosaria Porcaro, Dalla città preunitaria a quella industriale, in Storia Illustrata delle città dell'Umbria, a cura di Raffaele Rossi, Terni, a cura di Michele Giorgini, Elio Sellino Editore, Milano 1993, pp. 297-307
Prehistory The city, located in an alluvial plain between the Nera River and the Serra stream, saw its territory settled not before the Copper Age, to which date a hut floor and ceramic material with the typological characteristics of the Conelle-Ortucchio culture, discovered below some burials of the later necropolis of the steelworks. Even during the Middle Bronze Age human groups, bearers of the so-called Apennine Civilization inhabited this area, although the most significant archaeological evidence has been found around Lake Piediluco, not far from Terni.Laura Bonomi Ponzi, L'Età Protostorica, in Storia Illustrata delle città dell'Umbria, op. cit., pp. 37-46
Phase "Terni I" The most significant human presence, however, is dated to the 10th century B.C., that is, the beginning of the Iron Age: in 1884, during construction work on the steel mill, a vast necropolis was found, used until the 6th century B.C., belonging to the so-called Culture of Terni. Based on the type of grave goods, it is possible to distinguish three phases: Terni I, Terni II and Terni III.While it can be questioned, the classification remains the one formulated by Hermann Müller-Karpe, Beiträge zur Chronologie der Urnenfelderzeit nördlich und südlich der Alpen, Berlin 1959. For a more recent review of the material see Valentina Leonelli, La necropoli delle Acciaierie, in Valentina Leonelli, Paolo Renzi, Claudia Andreani, Cristina Ranucci, Interamna Nahartium, Materiali per il Museo Archeologico di Terni, edited by Vincenzo Pirro, Edizioni Thyrus, Arrone (TR) 1997, pp. 17-58
To the first phase, the earliest, belong the incineration tombs, formed by a mostly cylindrical shaft, inside which an olla and a set of fibulae and rings in female burials, bronze razors in male burials were deposited; in some tombs the cinerary urn was covered with one or two slabs of capuchin stone, and the whole shaft was filled with earth and pebbles, then bounded by a circle of stones. There are cultural similarities with the Lazio area, especially Rome-Alban Hills and Allumiere. The settlement corresponding to the necropolis of this period was probably located on Pentima Hill, along the eastern edge of the Terni basin, above the alluvial deposit between the Nera and Serra rivers, in which the necropolis was founded.
Phase "Terni II" The second phase, datable to the 9th century BCE, is characterized by the replacement of the funerary rite of incineration with that of inhumation, although the former still appears to have been practiced in a small minority of the depositions. Inhumation burials consisted of rectangular pits filled with earth and stones above ground level, sometimes bounded on the surface by a circle of stones. At the foot of the inhumed person were placed ollae and jars, locally produced, with partially purified impasto and little decoration.
In this period, male graves are dominated by the presence of weapons, generally made of bronze, including short swords with blade and hilt fused together, spearheads, some made of iron, placed on the sides of the head, triangular in shape. There are also numerous razors, usually half-moon shaped, with geometric engravings. Female burials are characterized by the presence of Bronze Age armillae, earrings, necklaces and spirals ornamented with amber, glass paste or bone. There are numerous fibulae of various shapes. At the time of discovery they were found to have been laid almost everywhere: from the simplest position at breast height to a long series reaching from the sternum to the feet along the left flank.
Cultural evidence from this phase reconnects the Terni necropolis to the Umbrian, Sabine, and Picenian areas, but with contributions from the Lazio phase of Rome-Alban Hills II, especially in pottery. The groups that founded the necropolis seem to be organized according to a possibly warrior hierarchy, capable of producing food surpluses from agricultural and breeding activities and in a minority of cases able to accumulate wealth, exchanging artifacts even over long distances, from Fratta Polesine, in the midst of the Veneto culture to northern and southern Etruria.
Phase "Terni III"
To the third phase, datable between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C., belong the tombs of S. Pietro in Campo, just west of the Steelworks necropolis. The burials are all inhumation burials, and are particularly rich: the men's with iron weapons, including leaf spears, javelins, swords and daggers; the women's with lebetes, basins, drawing cups, amphorae, as well as fibulae. The ceramic material, which is much finer and more finely worked than that of the previous phase, is usually represented by a large vase, and one or more small vessels and other objects, such as cups and ollae, all laid in a single tomb. The metal and ceramic objects are both of foreign origin, especially Phoenician, Etruscan, Faliscan, and Picenian, as well as local, but always with typically orientalizing references in those dated to the seventh and sixth centuries BCE.
The social group that used this necropolis seems marked by a greater differentiation of its members, some of whom dominated by wealth and military ability to control the territory; agro-food production went far beyond a simple subsistence economy, with the accumulation of even prestigious derricks; finally, the cultural environment was more inclined to accept new patterns. The settlement no longer seems to be located on the Pentima hill but on the small rise, corresponding to the present Clai square, where the Roman city and the Terni of later centuries would rise, as the result of an urbanization effort that saw the depopulation of some of the heights surrounding the Terni basin and the concentration of the population around a cultic area, near a ford of the Nera, at the confluence with the Serra; this geographical feature would justify the Latin toponym.Paolo Renzi, Terni dalla Prima Età del Ferro alla conquista romana (VIII-III secolo a.C.), ibidem, pp.61-135
The Eugubine Tables mention in the 3rd century B.C. the presence in the area of the people of the Naharti (Naharkum..Numen), either an Umbrian population or, if different from the Umbrians, a group belonging to an older Indo-European substratum.Massimo Pallottino, Storia della prima Italia, Rusconi, Milano 1984, pp. 37-55 It is likely that the Naharti lived precisely along the course of the Nera River, whose hydronymic root Nahar- is in common with the appellation Naharkum. The Naharti bordered with other peoples such as the Picenes and Etruscans and were considered enemies of the Umbrian arch of Gubbio, on a par with the Etruscans and Jabuscians. Overall they were a mixed-strain population, given the diverse amount of burials found in Terni. The Umbrian identity of the Naharti remained strong and conservative even after annexation to Rome, they managed to gain influence and become a Roman province. Naharki warriors composed an essential element of Umbro-Roman military garrisons.Andrea Agnetti, Terni celtica e la stirpe del drago, 2016 They founded the city in 672 B.C., as shown by a Tiberian-era Latin inscription. The name Interamna Nahars suggested that the Nera and Serra rivers and their tributaries surrounded the city, forming a natural defense. In fact: Inter (between) Amne (streams, rivers) and Nahars (Naharti-ki, inhabitants of the Nera River, in Latin Nar or Nahar).
Some of the summits surrounding the Terni plain continued to be inhabited, such as the southern foothills of the Martani Mountains, scattered with small settlements, located between 700 and 1,000 meters above sea level, not all of them for habitation purposes. The most important of these is the fortified site of S. Erasmo di Cesi, datable to at least the fifth century B.C., provided with two small necropolises dating from the ninth to sixth centuries B.C., which was built a little lower than the cultic complex of Torre Maggiore, dating from the sixth century B.C, but probably frequented from much earlier, in which a number of votive offerings have been found, mostly of a warrior nature; this indicates the military nature of the preeminent groups located on these heights.Laura Bonomi Ponzi, Il territorio di Cesi in età protostorica, in Cesi. Società e cultura di una terra antica, Todi 1989, pp. 9-30 The unproven report that above Rocca San Zenone was the Umbrian oppidum of Vindena probably refers to the remembrance of these highland settlements.
The Roman conquest