The Canals of Terracina
Within this ancient town these canals provide a Venice like ambiance but outside the town they still play an important drainage role and in WW2 they were used in an attempt at biological warfare.
Close to the Port of Terracina on the coast about 35 miles southeast of Rome the canal system has become an extension of the leisure marina area with pleasure vessels lined up on either side giving a feeling of being in Venice. The same applies to the area’s alternative marina at Porto Badino which is at the western end of the town and is also served by canals and canalised rivers.
A canal known as Canale Mortacino passes through the town and links the channel of the Fiume Portatore at Badino to the other main Terracina canal, Canale Linea Pio VI, which follows the line of the famous Roman Road, Via Appia and was built by Pope Pius VI in the 18th century. Canale Mortacino has boating along much of its length.
Whilst the extant canals are relatively recent they are based on an ancient network of canals and drains which started to be produced before the Roman occupation of the area in an attempt to drain the Pontine Marshes. The marshes used to lay just inland of the coast running from Terracina west to Anzio with the large sand dune upon which much of modern Terracina is built. forming a barrier to water draining to the sea..
Whilst the canals were not primarily constructed for navigation a canal which followed the route of the Via Appia for around 20 miles was reported by, Greek writer, Strabo to be used by mule-towed barges to carry goods in the 1st century BCE. Actually navigation is no longer encouraged on the inland parts of the system (although in October 2024 a boat was moored under the bridge at the junction of the two main canals).
The drainage function was pursued successfully by the Vosci tribe up to about 400BCE and later by the Romans who occupied the area (but initially let the drainage fail badly) and, in the 17th and 18th century, by the Papacy, all in an effort to drain the marshes to reduce the malaria threat from the mosquitos that used to breed there in large numbers. In Roman times it was estimated that a person spending one night in the marshes had an 80% chance of contracting malaria and outbreaks of malaria occasionally affected Rome. Furthermore any land which could be drained sufficiently to be dry in the growing season was found to be very productive for crops and before drainage the Via Appia was regularly flooded, making Terracina less useful as a port for Rome.
The early efforts drained the higher parts of the marshes by feeding a series of ditches into the canals but it was not until the efforts of the Fascist government of Mussolini, in the 1930s, that the problem was really solved. This was achieved with the introduction of pumps to raise water into canals from below sea level. As part of the extensive scheme the last canal to be built was the Mussolini Canal (subject of an award winning novel by Antonio Pennacchi) which discharged into the sea at Anzio. The Mussolini drainage system still attracts controversy because of the bad conditions under which the construction teams were required to work.
During WW2, after the landings at Anzio, the German defenders stopped all the pumps in the system and re-flooded the Pontine Marshes with brackish water from the canals in an attempt, some say, to create an epidemic of malaria amongst the invading allied troops.
After WW2 the malaria problem in the area was solved with DDT but drainage was re-established and continued for economic purposes, not least because the important new capital of the region Latina had been built by Mussolini’s government in the middle of the drained swamp.
Know Before You Go
The non-navigable parts of the system are very popular with anglers and the bird life on the canals is fantastic.
The pin is dropped at the junction of the two main canals where there is a small amount of parking. Actually parking in Terracina is very problematic.
If your interest is the engineering history follow the Via Appia from Terracina to Latina and you will see a range of pumping stations from the 1930s onwards and a series of feeder canals entering from the north and east.
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