City
Cosa
Ansedonia
Listen to the story
By the early fifth century Cosa stood deserted, and the poet Rutilius claimed its people had been driven out by a plague of mice. Rome had founded the colony in 273 BC on land taken from Vulci and ringed it with towered walls almost two kilometres long, still among the best preserved in Italy. The ruins lie on a hill near Ansedonia in Tuscany. The map marks the town with a pair of towers and links it by a short side road to Succosa, the station at the foot of the hill. There the copyist seems to have turned the sign for one mile into a puzzling abbreviation.