Altinum

Altinum (in Altino, a frazione of Quarto d'Altino) was an ancient town of the Veneti 15 km southeast of modern Treviso, close to the mainland shore of the Lagoon of Venice. It was also close to the mouths of the rivers Dese, Zero and Sile. A flourishing port and trading centre during the Roman period, it was destroyed by Attila the Hun in 452. The town recovered, but was later abandoned when sea-borne sand began to cover it over. Its inhabitants moved to Torcello and other islands of the northern part of the lagoon. Today Altinum is an archaeological area and has a national archaeological museum. Altium was a Venetic settlement. The earliest human presence in the area is dated to the 10th century BCE and is related to hunter gatherer groups. The earliest evidence of a settlement nucleus is dated from the mid-8th century to the mid-7th century BCE. In the 7th century BCE the settlement moved slightly to the northwest, in its historical location. A sacred area which is dated to the late 6th century BCE and developed in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE had votive offering objects from Greek, Magna Graecian, Etruscan and Celtic areas. This suggests that Altinum was the main port of the Veneti in the proto-historical age. Archaeology indicates that in the late 6th/early 5th century BC, the Veneti had precocious contact with Celtic areas through the communication routes along the rivers Adige and Piave in the major centres in the plain of the River Po (Este and Padua and the Adriatic ports such as Atria, modern Adria, and Altinum). There was a trading relationship between high-ranking families. There was a degree of intermarriage. Some Celts settled in the region. Celtic gift and fashion objects appear in the burials of important families. In the early 4th century BCE the Gauls invaded the plain of the Po as far as Verona. This led to a gradual ethnic mixing and loss of cultural identity, especially in the border areas of the Veneti; Verona in the west and the Lagoon of Venice and the Piave valley in the east.