Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Terni

TERNI, a town of Italy, in the province of Perugia, is situated in the fertile valley of the Nera, between two branches of that river, about 5 miles below the point where it is joined by the Velino. It has a station, threequarters of a mile off, on the railway line between Rome and Ancona, 69 miles to the north of the former city and 19 south by west from Spoleto. Terni is an episcopal see, and the seat of a sub-prefecture and a chamber of commerce. Its public buildings include the cathedral (17th century), the church of S. Francesco (partly dating from the 13th century), a gymnasium, and a theatre. Terni manufactures leather and cloth, and has some trade in wine and silk. For the traveller its chief interest lies in its antiquities (remains of an amphitheatre of the time of Tiberius, a temple, a theatre, baths, and numerous inscriptions) and in the proximity of the falls of Velino (Cascate delle Marmore). Alike in volume and in beauty these take a very high place among European waterfalls; the cataract has a total descent of about 650 feet, in three leaps of 65, 330, and 190 feet respectively. They owe their origin to M'. Curius Dentatus, who in 272 B.C. first opened an artificial channel by which the greater part of the Lacus Velinus in the valley below Reate was drained. The population of the town in 1881 was 9415, with its suburbs 10,371 (commune, 15,853).

Terni is the ancient Interamna ("inter amnes"), originally belonging to Umbria and founded, according to a local tradition, in the year 672 B.C. It early became a flourishing municipium, and it did not permanently suffer through being portioned out among his soldiers by Sulla. Its inhabitants had frequent litigations and disputes with their neighbours at Reate in connexion with the regulation of the Velinus, the waters of which are so strongly impregnated with carbonate of lime that by their deposits they tend to block up their own channel. The first interference with its natural course was that of M'. Curius Dentatus already referred to. In 54 B.C. the people of Reate appealed to Cicero to plead their cause in an arbitration which had been appointed by the Roman senate to settle disputes about the river, and in connexion with this he made a personal inspection of Lake Velinus and its outlets. In the time of Tiberius there was a project for regulating the river and its outlets from the lake, against which the citizens of Interamna and Reate energetically and successfully protested (Tac., Ann., i. 79). Similar questions arose as the river formed fresh deposits during the Middle Ages and during the 15th and 16th centuries. A branch of the Via Flaminia passed from Narnia to Forum Flaminii, and is given instead of the direct line in the Antonine and Jerusalem itineraries. The emperor Tacitus and his brother Florianus were probably natives of Interamna, which also has been claimed as the birthplace of Tacitus the historian, but with less reason. Terni was the scene of the defeat of the Neapolitans by the French on 27th November 1798.