Arco Etrusco
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
This gate is older than Roman Perugia. The great blocks belong to the Etruscan wall system built when the city was one of the major centres of inland Etruria. Later rulers did not discard the gate; they appropriated it.
After the Roman civil wars, an inscription linked the rebuilt city to Augustus. That makes the arch a useful lesson in how power works here: a new regime could write its name onto an older piece of infrastructure without needing to replace it. Look at the scale of the masonry. These walls were not picturesque ruins when built. They were an enormous investment in security, status and the control of movement through a difficult hilltop site.