The first visitors to the spa area: the lake of the ancient Venetians

In ancient times, the area where Abano and Montegrotto are now located was characterized by numerous hot springs that naturally gathered in small lakes or steaming pools that emanated an acrid sulfurous smell. The landscape was described in a lively and colorful way by many Latin authors who lived between the 1^st and 6^th centuries AD, but likely it wasn’t very different in previous eras.

The first visitors in the protohistoric age, at least starting from the eighth century BC, were the faithful from the surrounding area who gathered around a circular lake of   about 3 square kilometers; along its shoreline, they left small vases, bronze pieces, and offerings and celebrated rites to propitiate the local divinity of the steaming water by lighting fires and burning votive offerings.

The archaeological excavations conducted between 1870 and 1970 brought to light few thousand pots, mostly as small as miniatures, and about thirty small bronze pieces including votive pieces reproducing parts of the human body: it is clear that the nature of the cult practiced there was strictly connected to the curative characteristics of thermal water.

 

The lake was located in Montegrotto, in the area between Monte Castello and the hill of Saint Peter Montagnon, but it was gradually filled in ancient times. We do not know the indigenous name of this god, linked to healthy water and certainly male, as the dedication engraved on one of the jars reads, but its Latin name, Aponus, is well known. The modern name of Abano town derives from it: the etymology brings back to the Indo-European root *ap, connected to water, even if some late literary sources report a translation from the Greek a- ponos, which is “that takes away the pain”.

 

The protohistoric materials left around the lake prove the constant presence of settlements between the 8^th and the 3^rd centuries BC but the cult of Aponus continued throughout the period of Romanization, as evidenced by many inscriptions dedicated to the Aquae of Aponus and by the popularity of the place, called Fons Aponi (i.e. the source of Aponus), in the works of Latin authors of the imperial and late ancient ages.

 

Text written by Prof. Paola Zanovello, Department of Ancient Sciences, University of Padua

 

 

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