City
Vadis Volateris
Vada
Listen to the story
Vadis Volateris means 'at the shallows of Volaterrae', and it served as the harbour of the inland town of Volterra. The name comes from the marshy, shallow flats between the mouths of the rivers Cecina and Fine. Today the place is Vada on the Tuscan coast, settled since the ninth century BC and first mentioned by Cicero. On 5 November AD 417 the poet Rutilius Namatianus arrived here and described the port: two sandbanks broke the force of the waves and left calm water inside, but the entrance was so hard to find that branches marked the channel. Salt pans lay nearby.