The city was originally an Etruscan-Oscan settlement. Around 80-90 BC it became a Roman municipium, called Mevania', in the Augustan Regio VI. It lay on the western branch of the Via Flaminia, 13 km (8 mi) WSW of Forum Flaminii, where the branches rejoin.
In 310 BC the consul Fabius broke the Umbrian forces here; but otherwise it is not mentioned until the 1st century AD. In 69 the army of Vitellius awaited here the advance of Vespasian1.