RITUAL, ECONOM Y AND EARLY ROMAN COLONISATION IN LAZIO

COLONlAL CONJECTURES ON A LATE ARCHAIC SANCTUARY IN

T HE AGER OF SETIA

PETER ATTEMA

This paper investigates the relationship between ritual and urbanJrural development in the con­

text of the early Roman expansion in Latium Vetus by means of a case study deri ved from field­

work by the Pontine Region Project (PRP) in the ager of Setia (Fig. 26). Survey data collected

by the PRP in 1994 around a smalliate Republican temple dedicated to Juno indicate that this

temp Ie was built on the spot of a previous archaic cult place. The sanctuary is located on a site

with remains dating to the middle Bronze Age and early Iron Age, as appeared from a still un­

published excavation of pre- and protohistoric layers below the temple level by the local An­tiquarium Communale of Sezze. The results of the PRP survey of part of the temple terrain

point to the existence of a now ploughed out Sth/4th century BC votive deposit at the temple

site. Two late Archaic terracottas on display in the local Antiquarium of Sezze testify to a late

Archaic cult building which preceded the Republican temp Ie. Such data allow for the hypo­

thesis th at a late-Archaic sanctuary was deliberately placed in the early Sth century BC in the

location of a (still functioning?) protohistoric cult place. The cult may weil have been a water

cult in view of its location along a farmer watercourse that is no longer visible in the landscape.

The transformation of this sanctuary in the Sth century BC ar its foundation if there is no func­

tional continuity between the protohistoric and the late Archaic site, is tentatively related to

the process of early Roman expansion in the Pontine Region. This process is histarically at­

tested to have taken place from about SOO BC onwards.

Introduction: the Republican temple of Juno in the plain of Sezze

In the summer of 1985 a small team of local Italian archaeologists and amateurs of the Anti­quarium Comunale di Sezze uncovered the architectural remains of a small temple dedicated

to the goddess Juno in the northeastern part of the Pontine plain near Sezze. The temple was

69

-

ssmple area 4 � /

" Vllia sites with 0, stand;llg walls

/

sample area 1:"

�. Temple of Juno

''''' . /

" '�" " "" .. "';

) ( ) :.r.---

;" < Setia , ( �

�

N. A

1 km

Fig. 26 Location map showing the survey area, the location of Setia and the Republican temple of

Juno.

70

Fig. 27 Altar stone, 52 x 30 x 30 cm, courtesy of Antiquarium Comunale of Sezze (photo author).

The inscription reads (Zaccheo and Pasquali 1972: 136): IUNO [ni] REGINA [e] ARA S

Fig. 28 Photo taken from the temple location and showing the position of Setia on a foothill of the

Monti Lepini at a height of 319 m.

ascribed to Juno on account of a 2nd century BC inscription on an altar stone cut from tuja,

that reads 'altar sacred to the goddess Juno' (Fig. 27). A farmer ploughing his fields found the

altar together with a statuette of Mars and numerous, small, terracotta female votive heads of

about 3 cm. height. These few finds must represent many hundreds of votive artefacts brought

to the surface by farmers ploughing the irnmediate surroundings of the tempie. At the time,

the excavation of the temple was only reported in small announcements in local newspapers

and magazines. It still awaits full publication (Bruckner 1995: note 55). A short notice appeared

recently in an inventory of protohistoric sites (Belardelli and Pascucci 1996: 54); objects de­

riving from the excavation as weIl as the earlier chance finds are now on display in the Anti­quarium Comunale of Sezze (for the earlier finds: Zaccheo and Pasquali 1972: 136- 137).

The temple terrain is situated in the almost flat colluvial plain stretching out beneath and

within dear sight of the heavily walled Roman oppidum of Setia (present-day Sezze). The op­pidum is perched on a hilI top of the

'M onti Lepini at a height of 3 19 m, about 6 km to the north­

east of the temple (Fig. 28). Setia, to which the temp Ie must have belonged in Republican times,

lies about 80 km south of Rome. According to Velleius Paterculus (1. 14) it was founded in 382

BC and ancient historians regard the town as a Latin colony. lts foundation may be seen as a

result of the expansion policy into the Pontine Region by Rome and the Latin league. The func­

tion of the citadel of Setia was apparently to safeguard the area from the Voiscian peoples that

had begun to invade the Pontine plain in the preceding century. Forced urbanisation may be

7 1

I XLIII

, / OTem��,of Juno \ / ',

/ .(1

"

/ " /

/ '.

/

N Á.

1 km

Fig. 29 Map showing Setia, the temple of Juno, Faro Appio and the Via Appia (after Bruckner J 995, fig. 4).

regarded as a key element in the Roman expansion policy in order to occupy conquered territory

permanently. According to the ancient historian Salmon, the Romano-Latin allies peopled the

new Latin colony with coloni who received allotments of land after liberating the region. From

the outset the colonists were organised as a functioning and sovereign community, with its own

goveming bodies, magistrates and with its own urban centre (oppidum), usually sîtuated on a

strategic location (Salmon 1982: 6). A consul named Postumius Albinus constructed the Re­

publican temple dedicated to Juno in the ager of Setia while a praetor restored it afterwards.

The temple dates to a period in which the ager of Setia was already fully developed, with an

infrastructure connecting the oppidum on the hill to the thriving market place of Foro Appio on the Via Appia (Bruckner 1995: 199 ff.).

We may visualise the temple to have been located amidst cultivated fields during Republican

times. Intensive survey by the PRP revealed a dense pattem of Republican rural sites between

Setia and Foro Appio (Attema et al. 1996-1997). It appears that the temple of Juno, situated

at a short distance from Setia, functioned at that time as a religious centre for the inhabitants

of the farmsteads and villae in the plain. Processions may have been organised from the oppi­dum down to the temple, and doubtless it was also a point of reference for tra veIlers from and

7 2

Fig. 30 Setia on a historical map from 1678 produced at the occasion of Cornelis Meyer's reclama­

tion project for the Pontine Marshes. The map features both dry and wet land.

to the Roman oppidum, being located near a byraad leading off the Via Appia towards the

mountains (Fig. 29). This diverticolo is certainly Roman as demonstrated by the Roman bridge

of the Archi di S. Lidano and a Roman milestone (Bruckner 1985: 20 1-203); it connected the

Via Appia to the pedemontana, the archaic raad along the foot of the mountains. Fram here

one could take another raad leading to the Roman colony of Setia or praceed to the Roman

colony of Privemum and the valley of the river Amaseno. From there it would lead to the Sacco

valley and the Via Latina. However, the diverticolo was not the main artery for traffic coming

from Rome. We can assume that in Republican times the tempie's main function lay in the local

rural economy. The chance find of two Archaic temp Ie terracottas dating to the early 5th century

Be, as weIl as the results of the 1994 PRP survey of a heavily ploughed-out votive deposit im­

mediately to the northeast of the tempie, prove th at the Republican temple had a late Archaic

predecessor. It can be presumed that this early temple played a significant role in the initial co­

Ionisation process, when the colony itself was created and the land appropriated by

Roman/Latin colonists. From the surface finds in the wider area around the temple it is evident

th at the economy of the colony developed over a very short period of time and I assume that

this went hand in hand with a well-organised socio-political system. In this process an identity

had to be created for the colonists who were to till the previously marginally exploited ager. However, the finds associated with the late Archaic tempie, predate the foundation date of 382

73

for Setia. To understand from a historical point of view the continuity of cult between the Late

Archaic and the Republican period at the site of the temp Ie of Juno, we first have to look briefly

at the development of landscape and settlement in the ager of Setia.

Landscape development and buried archaeology

In antiquity as well as until the fascist era when the Pontine Marshes were drained under Mus­

solini's rec1amation programme of the 1930's, Setia and its ager bordered on the Pontine mar­

shes. Figure 30 shows the location of Setia on a historical, topographic map from 1678 featuring

both dry land and marshes. The map indicates Setia 's limited possibilities for agriculture on the

slightly inc1ined colluvial sheet of the ager Setina. In the Republican period this unit was pro­

bably in use for mixed farming, while the steeply inc1ined slopes of the Monti Lepini were most

probably exploited for olive cultivation, a situation not unlike today (Attema et al. 1999). How­

ever, things were different in the Bronze Age. Augerings carried out by the PRP have provided

radiocarbon dates of peaty layers below the alluvium indicating that wet conditions prevailed

in this area during the Bronze Age (Attema et al. 1996-1997; Attema and Delvigne, 2000).

These also show that much of the pre-Roman archaeology is buried so deeply that it will, even

after deepploughing, not appear at the surface. A test pit dug below the level of the Republican

temple by the local excavation team demonstrates this most c1early. The excavator reports a

dense concentration of protohistoric sherds and bones on a sandy layer at a dep th of about

2 .60-m. below the surface (Zaccheo 1986: 7 1). This layer is separated from the temple stratum

by a sterile layer of brown c1ay. In our augerings around the temple we also found sandy layers

(Attema et al 1996-1997: Fig.3). The sherds collected by Zacheo from the protohistoric 1ayer

are in a handmade, well-bumished, brown ware, which are dated to the middle Bronze Age

(Rosini in Belardelli and Pascucci 1996). The layer is interpreted by the excavators as the re­

mains of a settlement situated along a former streambed that, over time, became covered with

alluvium. Alluviation since the early Bronze Age has indeed been substantial in the ager of

Setia, having obscured large parts of the protohistoric landscape. However, the sequence of ar­

tefacts found at the temp Ie site indicates th at alluviation may not have interrupted hu man (cult)

activity. In the following I will consider the evidence for the deliberate placement of a sacred

building around 500 Be on a pre-existing human activity locus, as the protohistoric site may

have been visible when the late Archaic cult was installed here. Although only further exca­

vation will be able to resolve the issue, it is tempting to hypothesise the possible transformation

of a protohistoric cult place into the early Roman temple of Juno.

Continuity of cult at the temp Ie of Juno?

The finds undemeath and around the temp Ie leave no doubt that the sanctuary area is older than

the Republican period to which the now visible remains date. It was already frequented in late

Archaic times (Bruckner 1995: note 55). The two late Archaic terracotta fragments al ready

mentioned (one found during excavation and one found in a field opposite the temp Ie after

74

Fig. 31 A late Archaic terracotta from the temple area showing a Satyr and Maenad (courtesy of Anti­

quarium Comunale of Sezze, photo author).

Fig. 32 A late Archaic, Juno Sospita terracotta from the temple area (courtesy of the Antiquario Com­

munale of Sezze, photo author).

ploughing) date to the first or second decade of the 5th century Be and prove the existence of

an earlier sanctuary on the site of the later temple (Figs. 31 and 3 2). There is a chronological

gap between on the one hand the Bronze Age ceramics and bones and the early Iron Age cine­

rary urn from levels below the tempie, and on the other hand the temple itself. This gap may

be bridged in the future since the earliest votive gifts from the temple excavation, are bronze

sheet figurines which are said to date to the ih century Be (Zaccheo 1986: 71). An al most intact

do/ium a cordone, on display in the museum and recovered from the alluvium, dates to Latial

phase Ha (900-830 Be; Belardelli and Pascucci 1996: 54). The evidence leads one to think that

75

Fig. 33 Location of the survey grid of the sanctuary's votive deposit and surveyors collecting surface

finds in a stringsquare.

close study of all the excavated artefacts as weU as a new excavation of the whole terrain might

eventually close the remaining time gaps.

The evidence from the intensive PRP survey of a small part of the tempie's immediate sur­

roundings corroborates the archaeological data from the temple excavation. It supports the hy­

pothesis that this site was used as a cult place from the Late Archaic period onwards. The survey

was intended to verify the assumption that the temple terrain must have housed one or more

votive deposits on account of the many pottery sherds scattered around it (Attema 1993: 136

and 289-290). To this end a so-caUed stringsquare survey was carried out in a freshly ploughed

field to the northeast of, and adjacent to, the tempie. Sixty blocks of 4 by 4 m were surveyed

in an alternating grid system (Fig. 33). This method forces the surveyor to concentrate on a

small plot of land with the result that team members come up with even the smaUest items.

Thus several Roman coins and a Republican gemstone were among the finds. Besides such

small and precious finds, the special character of the artefact composition was evident from

the considerable number of black glaze pottery: whereas 1 218 black glaze sherds were found

in the 8 .3 ha. of the larger rural survey, which I wiU discuss hereafter, 916 black glaze sherds

were retrieved from the 960 m2

of the sanctuary area alone. Black glazed ware is generally

dated from the middle of the 4th to the 1 st century Be, when it is replaced by terra sigillata. Black glaze pottery is thus indicative of the Republican phase of dedications at the temple of

Juno.

76

15 14 13 12 1 1 1 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

1-8116m2 9-16116m2

Ll17-31/16m2

Fig. 34 Distribution map of

protohistorie fabrics (Bronze

Agellron Age): maximum

score 31/16 m2.

25 2

1-39116m2 40-79116m2

1180>116m2 X No data available

Fig. 35 Distribution

map of Archaic, late Ar­

chaic and post-Archaic

fabrics: maximum score

204/16 m2.

?f; -v

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 7 16 15 14 13

5 4' 3 2' 1

1-391l6m2 40-79116m2

1180>/16m2 X No data available

Fig. 36 Distribution map

of local coarse and depur­

ated fabrics in the (early)

colonial tradition: maxi­

mum 98/16 m2.

77

For the earlier periods no such diagnostic fine wares were recovered, and consequently

coarse wares had to be relied on mainly. These were dated on the basis of their fabrics. This

resulted in three distribution maps th at show total numbers of databie coarse fabrics per string­

square for the protohistoric (Fig. 34), the Archaic, late Archaic and post-Archaic periods (Fig.

35) and the early colonial period respectively (Fig. 36). The rnaps show a thin distribution for

the protohistoric period, but a dense pattem for the Archaic, late Archaic and post-Archaic

periods. The assemblage belonging to the latter period contains many, thin-walled, red fabrics

with much augite, fabrics used for the production of medium sized jars, the so-called olie. Besides these jars, many (knobs of) lids were found in this fabric. Another frequent ceramic

category, databie to the late Archaic period, is a pale firing fabric, used for the manufacture of

tiles and terracottas, as weIl as an orange firing fabric used for the manufacture of tiles. The

specific ceramic assemblage (many medium-sized containers (olie) and lids but no storage jars

(dolii); the presence of fragments of terracottas, til es and votive heads) in combination with

bone material resembles the contents of a post-archaic votive deposit that the University of

Groningen excavated at Satricum (Bouma 1996). Likewise I interpret this material as the re­

mains of a substantial post-archaic votive deposit that has been ploughed out. The continuity

of the deposit into the Republican period is c1ear from the presence of fabrics in the colonial

tradition, as mapped in Fig. 36. Between the periods we must allow for overlap. In the following

some observations will be made concerning the type of cult that may have been practised in

the late Archaic period, and its possible role in the early Roman colonisation process, as sug­

gested by the evidence from Satricum.

7he Late Archaic cult practice and its possible relation with early RomanJLatin colonists

The combination of fabrics and wares found in the survey of the area around the temple of Juno

is si mil ar to that found in votive deposit 11 at Satricum, dated by the excavators mainly to the

5th

and 4th

century BC (Bouma 1996; Bouma this volume). Based on the analysis of the bone

fragments, the ritual practised at Satricum was interpreted as the Latin/Roman ritual of suove­taurilia (Bouma 1996; Prummel and Bouma 1997). Dedicants would come and place their ani­

mal offerings in vases sometimes covered with a piece of tile. Of course the detailed evidence

from Satricum can not be matched by the intensive survey of the sanctuary area at the temp Ie

of Juno, but the parallel in associated artefacts is striking. The existence of a 5th/4

th century

BC votive deposit in the ager of Setia raises the question of the role of such sanctuaries in the

early Roman colonisation process. To understand the demographic situation in the ag er of Setia we have to take a brief look at the results of the rural survey, as opposed to the temple survey,

carried out by the PRP in 1994. We surveyed 176 fields in various sample areas, totalling 8.3 hectares collecting nearly 34,000 sherds. Applying a correction factor of 3.0 for the partial

coverage of the fields (29.2% on average), the standard over-all sherd density in the ager of

Setia is estimated at 4.5 sherds per 100m2. This is a very high ra te considering the fact that this

figure combines site and off-site densities as weIl as fields that were devoid of sherds. Moreover

the chronology of the ceramics indicates a rapid intensification of rural exploitation from about

the middle of the 4th

century BC onwards, while rural settlement decline took place from the

7 8

beginning of the Imperial period. The pottery record of the rural survey also shows - perhaps

not surprisingly in the light of the temple survey - signs of continuity with the late Archaic

period. It indicates sparse human presence in the earlier protohistoric periods. The quite sudden

increase in late Archaic pottery fabrics over the landscape and especially their spatial distribu­

tion, marks an apparent demographic increase. This may be explained by the presence of a

group of colonists arriving here at an earl ier date than the first half of the 4th

century Be. Fabrics

from the 6th

and early 5th

centuries BC are especially manifest in the immediate surroundings

of the temp Ie of Juno. This either means th at the Archaic temple was part of an early 'pre-op­pidum' phase of colonisation in the plain (see also Bruckner 1995: note 55), or that it functioned

as an extra-urban sanctuary belonging to the oppidum of Setia, in which case Setia would have

had to be founded earlier than 38 2 Be.

The questions raised by the late Archaic cult in the ager of Setia are thus related t�:

• the chronological association between the sanctuary in the plain and the Roman colony on

the hill and

• the possible role of the sanctuary in the early colonisation process.

The latter question is relevant for the hypothesis that a former cult in the plain was deliberately

replaced by means of different cult activities in the late Archaic period. A possible scenario is

provided by the actual practice of Roman colonisation.

Scenarios of colonisation

It is suggested above that the archaeological data may be tentatively interpreted in the historical

framework of the early Roman colonisation, i.e. as a reflection of institutionalised Roman co­

lonial policy. Roman colonisation was a complex formal procedure which was, according to

the ancient historian Daniel 1. Gargola, legally and rituaIly, minutely defined and based on ar­

chaic Latin practice (though written down from Republican times onwards). To quote Gargola:

'A ritual and formula dominated the interactions between the founders and those under their

authority. Decisions and operations th at would be considered pragmatic were confirmed and

executed in the context of ritual, of ten versions of those rites that served the same purpose at

Rome' (Gargola 1995: 7 2). An example of such a pragmatic operation was the surveying of

land to be allotted to private persons and colonist families. This implies, that before new Roman

territory was actually settled and exploited by private persons and colonist families, Roman

colonial practice established a priori a strong link between the day-to-day agricultural exploi­

tation and Roman ritual. Ritual and law legitimised the appropriation of territory to the ends

of the colonising society. The modification or transformation of sanctuaries may weIl have

played an important role in this process (cf Alcock 1993: 172 ff.).

Although the descriptions of ritual and formula for the regulation of colonial territories is

mainly based on later Roman Republican practice, Gargola notes that it is most certainly rooted

in more ancient times. What we may read in the archaeological record of the 5th/4th century

BC and thereafter, is the conscious implementation of the Roman concepts of urbs and ager on new territory. This is conform Gargola's description of the colonial process: 'there (i.e. in

the colony about to be founded), the triumvirs carried through operations that created a new

79

community with all of its attributes, establishing a fortified centre to protect the settlers, giving

it its public institutions, and assigning lands to coloni' (Gargola 1995). But, as Gargola stresses,

a colony was more than a settlement of farmers with some form of self-government. For the

Romans it was an urbs, a complex organisation of citizens, magistrates, ritualised practices and

spaces. Within its territory, the founders sought to duplicate the urbs Roma and the ager Ro­manus in some of its political, cultic, and legal aspects. The 4th century BC and later settlement

patterns in the Pontine Region and the Sacco valley certainly accommodate this reconstruction,

with strongly fortified centres and archaeologically attested public, private and ritual spaces,

the latter dedicated to Roman dei ties. Besides, we have evidence of rapid rural infill of the land­

scape immediately around the fortified centres. The debate is rather on whether Republican

Roman colonial practice, which was established in Latium Vetus and Adiectum in the course

of the 4th century BC, can be traced back into the Sth and early 4th centuries BC, as the ancient

historian Livy wrote for the colony of Norba for instance. In my view the evidence for the

temple of Juno sUPf0rts a Roman colonisation phase th at predates the urban colonisation phase

of the advanced 4t century Be. The argument is based on the scarcity of Iron Age and early

Archaic fabrics in the survey of both the rural settlement and the sanctuary while late Archaic

fabrics are abundant. Bronze Age and early Iron Age fabrics are present deep below the temple

level under a sterile alluvial layer. This may either indicate that the protohistoric site was re­

settled around SOO BC af ter a period of sedimentation or that an earlier cult was consciously

replaced by a new one involving an open votive deposit. Only an excavation aimed at this pro­

blem and at a closer dating of all artefacts involved may be able to clarify these issues.

In spite of these uncertainties, it is clear th at late Archaic colonists with a Roman/Latin back­

ground fostered the new cult. They exploited the landscape in the plain on a much larger scale

than before. In this scenario the late Archaic sanctuary at the site of the temple of Juno may

have functioned as a prime nucleus. It changed into an extra-urban sanctuary of the urban co­

lony of Setia, during the mid-republican period in which cults tended to change into he al th cults

involving artefacts such as anatomical votive gifts. Such votives were not found during the

temple survey but are present in other deposits in the temp Ie area as weIl as elsewhere in the

ager of Setia. If chronological continuity and a cultic function of the protohistoric site can be

established in the future, it may weIl turn out that the protohistoric layer below the temple re­

presents an early Latin water cult. As our surveys indicate, people from settlements in the

nearby Lepine highlands and from sparse sites in the plain, might have frequented this sacred

place.

80