Road station
Patavis
Padua
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Patavium, now Padua, claimed the Trojan prince Antenor as its founder, as Virgil tells, and the historian Livy, born here, records how the town beat off the Spartan raider Cleonymus in 302 BC and remembered the victory every year with a mock sea battle. Padua grew rich from wool and cloth, and under Augustus it counted five hundred knights among its citizens. Nearby lay the hot springs of Aponus, now Abano, with an oracle.