Felsina, Etruscan Bologna, and Bononia, Roman Bologna, are the same city under successive names. Classical writers said it was founded as Felsina, and by 196 BC it had probably become Bononia.

This guide follows the name rather than the whole city: where the tradition of Felsina comes from, what can be said about its meaning, and how Bononia replaced it. The wider story sits in the etruschi a bologna storia hub, while who were the etruscans of bologna introduces the people behind the earlier name.

Felsina and Bononia as successive names

Bononia is the ancient form of modern Bologna and was the chief town of ancient Aemilia. A reader who meets both names in a museum, a classical text or a map is therefore looking at one place at different moments, not two neighbouring towns.

Point of comparison	Felsina	Bononia
Period	Etruscan civilization at Bologna, c. 600–400 BC	Probably in use by 196 BC; Roman colony from 189 BC
How the name is attached to the town	Reported by classical writers as the name under which the town was founded	The name of the town in Roman history
Founding or legal status	Said to have been founded from Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus	Roman colony in 189 BC; Roman citizenship in 90 BC
Wider context	Follows pre-Etruscan huts and cemeteries dated c. 800–600 BC	Held by the Boii in 196 BC; base of operations for Mark Antony in 43 BC

Why Bologna was called Felsina

Bologna was called Felsina because ancient writers recorded the Etruscan-origin town under that name and attached it to a founding story. According to the Britannica entry, the town was founded, under the name Felsina, from Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus. The name is thus tied to a named founder and a parent city rather than to a description of the place.

That is a foundation tradition, and it is best read as the way later writers explained the town’s origin. The physical evidence tells a layered story that the tradition does not capture. Excavations found about 600 ancient Italic huts, with the label “Ligurian” marked as uncertain, and huts and cemeteries of this kind are dated c. 800–600 BC, immediately before the Etruscan period. An extensive Etruscan necropolis was discovered on the site of the modern cemetery. Readers who want the earlier phase in detail can turn to the guide to villanovan culture bologna.

What the name Felsina means

No secure meaning for Felsina can be offered, because it is an Etruscan-period name and the language behind it was poorly understood. The 1876 study Etruscan Bologna by Richard Burton states that the problems of the Etruscan language’s origin and its position “have not been solved”. The same work says some Italic words had been detected in Etruscan, or rather guessed.

The practical consequence is a matter of reading discipline. Any translation of Felsina rests on a language its nineteenth-century student considered unresolved, so a tidy dictionary-style meaning should be treated as a guess rather than a finding. The evidence supports saying what the name was and who used it, and it supports far less on what the word meant.

When Felsina became Bononia

Felsina became Bononia by a change that is inferred rather than dated to a single year. The Britannica entry says the town first appears in history in 196 BC, already in the possession of the Boii, and that it had probably by this time changed its name. The Etruscan civilization at Bologna is dated c. 600–400 BC, so the rename falls somewhere after that period and before 196 BC.

The surrounding Roman milestones fix the name in its new setting:

1. c. 600–400 BC: the Etruscan civilization at Bologna, the period of the Felsina tradition.
2. 196 BC: the town appears in history, held by the Boii and probably already renamed.
3. 189 BC: Bononia becomes a Roman colony.
4. 90 BC: Bononia acquires Roman citizenship.
5. 43 BC: Mark Antony uses the town as his base of operations against Decius Brutus.

For anyone dating a source, the useful rule is simple. Treat Felsina as the label for the Etruscan-era town and Bononia as the label for the town from the Roman colony onward, and expect the earliest uses of Bononia to overlap with the period of Boii control.

Certainty and common misunderstandings

The identification of Felsina with Bologna rests on two different kinds of evidence, and they are not equally firm. Bononia as modern Bologna is stated plainly by the Britannica entry. The link between Bononia and Felsina comes from the statement by classical writers, supported by the Etruscan necropolis found on the modern cemetery site. The points below separate what is firm from what is tradition.

• “Felsina and Bononia were different towns.” This is a mix-up. Bononia is modern Bologna, and the classical tradition holds that the town began as Felsina.
• The Roman step changed its status and, probably, its name, not its existence.
• “The founding story is documented fact.” The founding from Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus is what classical writers said, so it is a tradition to attribute rather than a result to quote as settled.
• “Everything buried there was Etruscan.” An 1876 report on Nicolucci’s examination of skulls records that skulls from Villanova and Marzabotto were judged non-Etruscan. Ethnic labels on burials need care, and the name Felsina should not be stretched to cover every find.

A careful way to write about the city follows from this.

Frequently asked questions

Question	Answer
Is Bononia the same place as Bologna?	Yes. Bononia is the ancient name of modern Bologna, the chief town of ancient Aemilia.
Who is said to have founded Felsina?	Aucnus or Ocnus, who according to the classical tradition founded it from Perusia.
What stood on the site before the Etruscan period?	Huts and cemeteries dated c. 800–600 BC, including the discovery of some 600 ancient Italic huts whose Ligurian attribution is uncertain.
Who held the town in 196 BC?	The Boii. The town appears in history at that date, and it had probably changed its name by then.
When did Bononia gain Roman status?	It became a Roman colony in 189 BC and acquired Roman citizenship in 90 BC.