The "Trev" in Trevi - What does it mean?
All these variations, of which the Latin Trivium is the scholarly translation, can easily be traced back to a single conventional form: Trebium. This, or rather its root Treb- – as archaeologists know far better than we do – appeared in many Ancient Italic place names. For instance: Trebula, often found in Campania; Trebia, a tributary of the Po (= Trebbia); Treba near the source of the Aniene (now Trevi, in the Latium region); Trebi, or Trebiae (today, Trevi in Umbria) near the River Clitumnus, and so on. In those days, the root Treb- was used almost in the way that the vague “Casale” [hamlet, farm or farmhouse] is used so often today. However, it is obvious that not a single one of all those places whose names start with Treb- has anything in common with the one that interests us, since they are all far from the area, halfway between Rome and Tivoli, where the Aqua Vergine originated.
In fact, the exact opposite is true. On the basis of researches that cost the professionals a great deal of effort, I can state that in the Middle Ages (and therefore also in the days of the Ancient Romans) several “Casali” or tiny hamlets existed in that very area between Rome and Tivoli and that their names shared that same root: “Trebaria land on the border with Tivoli” was given to the Anicia people in the 6th century; Pope Paschal was taken prisoner near “castellum Trebicum”, also situated between Tivoli and Rome; a huge farm, named in two notarised deeds of 1389 as “Lo Treio Mandarino” and in Latin as “Tribium Mannarinum” existed outside the walls of San Lorenzo on the Via Tiburtina
Moreover, in 1151, Oddo Colonna, acting for his brother and himself, ceded to Pope Eugene III several parcels of land in exchange for the “totum castrum Trebani” also called “castellum Trebanis, Trebici or Trebis”, located near what is today the zone called Sette Cammini, i.e. almost the same area as the springs that now supply the Trevi water. Next Page...
