From his and other notices of it in connection with Tarquinii, it seems highly probable that it stood close to, if not actually within the territory of that city, as Vitruvius appears to intimate (1: Vitruv.
The lastnamed writer says there were immense preserves of hares, stags and wild sheep, in the ager of Statonia.
There is every reason to believe that Statonia stood somewhere in this northern district of the Etruscan plain, but to which of the ancient sites in this quarter, of undetermined name, to assign it, we have yet no means of deciding.
Four or five miles west of Ischia lies Valentano, on a hill of black ashes, part of the lip of the great crater-lake of Bolsena.
From a terrace outside the walls a magnificent view of the lake is to be had, but I saw it in lowering weather, when the clouds lay like a gray pall on its waters, and only when they occasionally broke could I catch a glimpse of its broad, leaden surface, with its two islets of fabulous renown, and the headland of Capo di Monte appearing like a third.
This town is supposed by Cluver to be the representative of Verentum, a place of which no express mention is made, but which he conjectures to have existed, from the persuasion of a corruption in the text of Pliny.
The balance is also greatly in favour of "Veientani", inasmuch as Pliny in his catalogue would surely not omit all mention of that colony, which was the nearest of all, almost within sight of the Seven Hills, and whose past history was so intimately interwoven with that of rome.
From Valentano there is a track, a mere bridle-path, to pitigliano, within the Tuscan frontier, about twelve miles distant.
And of Lacus Prilis, now Lago Castiglione, may be said, what will be apply with equal force to the Thrasymene, that it is much too remote from Tarquinii; for Statonia, as already shown, was either close to or within the ager of that city.
Such seems to have been the case with Vadimonian lake, which is now almost choked by the encroachment of its banks on the water; and a similar process is going forward in the Lacus Cutiliae, in Sabina, and in the Sulphureous lakes below Tivoli; where masses of vegetables matter, floating on the water, assume the appearance of islands, and having had their cruise awhile, become entangled at length by some prominent rock or tree on the shore, attach themselves permanently to it, and settle down into respectable portions of terra firma.