Massa
Massa surnamed. MASSA VETERNENSIS, a town of Etruria, situated about 12 miles from the sea on a hill overlooking the wide plain of the Maremma: hence it is now called Massa Marittima. In the middle ages it was a considerable city and the see of a bishop; but it is not mentioned by any ancient author earlier than Ammianus Marcellinus (14.11.27), who tells us that it was the birthplace of the emperor Constantius Gallus. From the epithet Veternensis, it would seem probable that there was an Etruscan city of the name of Veternum in its neighbourhood; and, according to Mr. Dennis, there are signs of an Etruscan population on a hill ] called the Poggio di Vetreta, a little to the SE. of the modern town. (Dennis, Etruria, vol. ii. p. 218.) [E.H.B] 1
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.