City
Bononia
Bologna
Listen to the story
Bononia is Bologna, a city with a long past before Rome: the Roman writer Pliny says it was called Felsina when it was the leading city of Etruria. The Romans took it from the Celtic Boii and in 189 BC settled a Latin colony of about three thousand people here. Two years later the Via Aemilia ran through the town, and a second road crossed the Apennines to Arezzo. On a small island in the river Reno, Antony, Octavian and Lepidus sealed the Second Triumvirate in 43 BC. When fire ravaged the city in AD 53, the young Nero spoke on its behalf.