City
Aquileia
Aquileja
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Aquileia lies near the head of the Adriatic in northern Italy, where Rome founded a Latin colony in 181 BC to stop Gauls crossing the Alps from settling there. Legend linked its name to a lucky flight of eagles, though it more probably comes from a river. The map honours it with a bird's-eye view of a walled city: a six-sided ring with a gabled building and a round tower inside, a distinction it shares with Ravenna and four eastern cities. Because Attila destroyed Aquileia in 452, scholars date these drawings to before then. The copyist, meanwhile, forgot the road line towards the springs of the Timavus.