Industria
- a city in Liguria, on the right bank of the Padus, now Monteù di Po, near Chivasso, Plin. 3, 5, 7, § 49; 3, 16, 20, § 122.
- —Hence, Industrĭ-ensis, e, adj., Tab. Aenea ap. Maff. Mus. Ver. p. 230.
INDU´STRIA a town of Liguria, situated on the right bank of the Padus, about 20 miles below Turin. It is mentioned only by Pliny, who tells us that its ancient name was BODINCOMAGUS which he connects with Bodincus, the native name of the Padus [PADUS], and adds that it was at this point that river first attained a considerable depth. (Plin. Nat. 3.16. s. 20.) Its site (which was erroneously fixed by earlier writers at Casale) has been established beyond question at a place called Monteú di Po, a few miles below Cbivasso, but on the right bank of the river, where excavations have brought to light numerous coins and objects of ancient art, some of them of great beauty, as well as several inscriptions, which leave no doubt that the remains thus discovered are those of Industria. They also prove that it enjoyed municipal rank under the Roman empire. (Ricolvi e Rivautella, il sito dell' antica città d'Industria, dc., Torino. 1745,4to.; Millin, Voy. en Piémont, vol. i. pp. 308--311.)
[E.H.B]A Roman colony of the Augustan Regio IX, perhaps contemporary with Valentia, Pollentia, and Hasta, all of which were enrolled in the tribus Pollia. It seems to have had assigned to it all the districts of Roman citizens in Cisalpine Gaul before the social war. The settlement, dating to the century prior to the social war, developed on either side of the road which follows the right bank of the Po and led from Augusta Taurinorum to Vardagate and from there to Valentia and Vercellae. The Ligurian name of Bodincomago by which Industria was called earlier, according to Pliny (3.5.20, 21), demands the existence on the same spot of a pre-Roman settlement, but evidence is lacking.
The regularity, which has been seen from an examination of the known elements (few remains of poorly identified buildings and streets) and the military considerations attendant upon building a city on one of the major roads of access to W Cisalpine Gaul, make it possible to conjecture a regular grid plan and the existence of a fortification wall. The existence of the wall would appear to be confirmed by the discovery of a tower, closed by a double wall of loose rubble core with facing in opus incertum. A complex erroneously thought to be a theater has recently been identified as a cult building, a sanctuary extra moenia dedicated perhaps to Isis and dating to the 2d c. of the Empire. From there come valuable bronze figures, some produced in local shops, now in the Museo di Antichità in Turin. The imposing monumental remains, the richness and the value of the recovered figures, and the numerous inscriptions document the floruit of urban life in the centuries of the Empire. We do not yet know the extent of the settlement which, beyond the road to Casale, must have joined the ancient bed of the Po river, 1 km S of the present course. The necropolis has also been tentatively placed; a late tomb was set over the ruins of a sanctuary of Isis on its S edge.
BIBLIOGRAPHYE. Fabretti, “Dell'antica città di Industria detta prima Bodincomago,” ASPABA (1880) 44ff; F. Gabotto, “I municipi romani dell'Italia occidentale,” Biblioteca Soc. Storica Bibliografica Subalpina 33 (1908) 280; E. Durando, “Scavi archeologici nel sito dell'Antica città di Industria,” ASPABA (1913) 117ff; P. Barocelli, “Monteu da Po: scoperte nel territorio dell'antica Industria,” NSc (1914) 185, 441; U. Erwin, “The early colonisation of the Cisalpine Gaul,” BSR (1952) 54ff; P. Fraccaro, “Un episodio dell'agitazione agraria dei Gracchi” Studies . . . D. M. Robinson (1953) 884ff; M. Barra Bagnasco et al., Scavi nell'anea dell'antica Industria (Memorie Acc. Scienza Torino; 1967) 4, n. 13; id. et al., “Notizia degli scavi nell'area dell'antica Industria,” BSPABA (1968) 47ff.
S. FINOCCHI