Itri is a small city and comune the province of Latina, Lazio, central Italy. Itri is an agricultural centre divided in two parts by a small river, the Pontone. It lies in a valley between the Monti Aurunci and the sea, not far from the Gulf of Gaeta. The more ancient part, with the Castle, was partly destroyed during World War II. The Itrani speak a particular variant of the Neapolitan language called Itrano. History The first direct documentary record of Itri dates to 914, but settlements in the neighbourhood existed from prehistoric times, as proved by findings from the Neolithic and the Bronze Ages. According to legend, Itri's origins appear to coincide with the destruction of Amyclae, a maritime city founded by the twin sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, whose Spartan followers clashed with Aeneas. The Greek colony was most likely on the coast at about north of Fondi. Amyclae was founded between Lake Fondi and the Terracina coast, on the edge of the murky waters of the swamps present at the time. The quiet Amyclaeans were plagued by the cursed and numerous evil forces of the swamp, unstoppable beings such as the monstrous serpent with nine heads, the Lernaean Hydra, which attacked with poisonous venom, and whose heads would re-grow as quickly as Hercules could slice them off with his sword. The city of Amyclae was soon annihilated. The few survivors abandoned the city and relocated a few kilometers south to the area now known as Itri. These first inhabitants of Itri supposedly adopted the emblems of the "Signum Salutis", a serpent, as their symbol of power, and "Amycleus", the dog's head, as their symbol of fidelity. More likely, Itri was probably a town or outpost of the Aurunci, later conquered and assimilated by the Romans. The name Itri derives from the Latin word iter, meaning "route" or "way", appropriate since the city lies where the old Roman Via Appia, built in 312 BC, crosses the Monti Aurunci by way of a narrow pass, the Gola di Sant'Andrea, called by Charles Dickens a "noble mountain pass". An alternative hypothesis on the origin of the town's name suggest it derived from the cult of the Eastern God Mithra, as there is a large subterranean temple dedicated to him a few hundred meters south of the town. Still another suggestion is that it derives from the Greek for snake