Description : Heba was a Roman colony in Etruria . The settlement was founded in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. BC and lay on a hill southeast of Magliano in Toscana in the province of Grosseto . The name of the place as Heba is secured by an inscription on a found cippus made of travertine , which is kept in Magliano. The inscription, which can be dated between the second half of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd century AD, is dedicated to the genius of the Heba colony. Claudius Ptolemy mentions Heba in his atlas Geographike Hyphegesis , calls it ηβα in Greek and locates the colony between Vulci and Saturnia . Pliny mentions in his encyclopedia Naturalis Historia placeHerba . As the community the title still in the 2nd century. Chr. Colonia was wearing were obviously here Roman citizens were settled. Aerial photos of Heba show the typical orthogonal city plan of a Roman city with cardo and decumanus . A forum can be seen near the intersection of Cardo and Decumanus and some public buildings to the west of the forum. A residential area with private houses could also be discovered in the aerial photographs. So far, only a few remains of wall structures and architectural elements have been exposed. One of the epigraphic finds is the so-called Tabula Hebana , a bronze plaque that is currently in the Archaeological Museum of Grossetois kept. The inscription contains provisions for funeral services to commemorate Germanicus and new regulations for the electoral process of praetors and consuls . There was an Etruscan necropolis from the 7th and 6th centuries BC near Heba . Therefore one can assume that there was an Etruscan predecessor settlement, which was probably called Hepa . The lead plate discovered on site by Magliano with an inscription in Etruscan script is of great importance for the understanding of the Etruscan language .
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