Clastidium was a village of the Anamares, in Gallia Cispadana, on the
Via PostumiaThe Via Postumia was an ancient Roman road of northern Italy constructed in 148 BC by the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus Magnus.It ran from the coast at Genua through the mountains to Dertona, Placentia and Cremona, just east of the point where it crossed the Po River...
, 5 miles east of Iria (modern
Vogherathumb|250px|The Castle of Voghera in a 19th century etching.Voghera is a town and comune of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Pavia...
) and 31 miles west of
PlacentiaPiacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...
.
Here in
222 BCYear 222 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Marcellus and Calvus...
Marcus Claudius MarcellusMarcus Claudius Marcellus , five times elected as consul of the Roman Republic, was an important Roman military leader during the Gallic War of 225 BC and the Second Punic War...
defeated the Gauls and won the
spolia opimaSpolia opima refers to the armor, arms, and other effects that an ancient Roman general had stripped from the body of an opposing commander slain in single combat...
; in
218Year 218 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scipio and Longus...
Hannibal took it and its stores of
cornMaize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
by treachery. It never had an independent government, and not later than
190 BCYear 190 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Asiaticus and Laelius...
was made part of the colony of Placentia, founded in
219Year 219 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Paullus and Salinator...
.
In the
Augustan division of ItalyItalia was the name of the Italian peninsula of the Roman Empire.-Under the Republic and Augustan organization:During the Republic and the first centuries of the empire, Italia was not a province, but rather the territory of the city of Rome, thus having a special status: for example, military...
, however, Placentia belonged to the 8th region,
Aemilia, whereas Iria certainly, and Clastidium possibly, belonged to the 9th region,
LiguriaLiguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
(see
Theodor MommsenChristian Matthias Theodor Mommsen was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. His work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research...
in
Corp. Inscrip. Lat. vol. v. Berlin, 1877, p. 828).
The remains visible at Clastidium are scanty; there is a fountain (the
Fontana d'Annibale), and a Roman bridge, which seems to have been constructed of tiles, not of stone, was discovered in 1857, but destroyed.