VETULONIA, an ancient town of Etruria, Italy. It lies 1,130 ft. above sea-level, about 10 m. directly N.W. of Grosseto, on the north-east side of the hills which project from the flat Maremma and form the promontory of Castiglione. In Etruscan times there was a bay here. Silius Italicus tells us that it was hence that the Romans took their magisterial insignia (fasces, curule chair, purple toga and brazen trumpets), and it was un doubtedly one of the twelve cities of Etruria. There are remains of the acropolis walls of massive limestone, in almost horizontal course, and also of houses and a street of the Roman period.
The earliest tombs found belong to the Villanovan period (First Benacci to late Second Benacci stage). Next come transi tional tombs (in some of which hut-urns are found) surrounded by a ring of stones, and a few graves which are very early Etrus can: and then a group of important palaeo-Etruscan tombs (850 700 B.c.), most of them circle graves, in which objects of very great value and interest have been found. The objects found are in the museum at Florence.
See Randall Maclver, Villanovans and Early Etruscans (1924) •