Cult places and cultural change in Republican Italy : a contextual approach to religious aspects of rural society after the Roman conquest /
Stek, Tesse Dieder.
Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press,
c2009.
This study throws new light on the Roman impact on Italic religious structures in the last four centuries BC and, more generally, on the complex processes of change and accommodation set in motion by the Roman expansion in Italy. Cult places had a pivotal function among the various 'Italic' tribes known to us from the ancient sources, which had been gradually conquered and subsequently controlled by Rome. Through an analysis of archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence from rural cult places in Central and Southern Italy including a case study on the Samnite temple of San Giovanni in Galdo, the author investigates the fluctuating function of cult places in among the non-Roman Italic communities, before and after the establishment of Roman rule.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-255) and index.
Rome and Italy : ideas on cultural change -- 'Religious Romanisation' and the fate of Italic rural sancturaries -- Samnium : the sacred construction of community and architectural forms --Location and function of Italic sancturaries in society : three models -- Landscape of the sacred : contextualising the Samnite sanctuary of S. Giovanni in Galdo, Colle Rimontato (CB) -- Roman sacred landscapes? the pagus-vicus system revised -- Cult and colonisation : pagi, vici and sanctuaries -- Roman ritual in the Italian countryside? The Paginalia and the Lustratio pagi -- Roman ritual in the Italian countryside? The Compitalia and the shrines of the Lares Compitales.
This study throws new light on the Roman impact on Italic religious structures in the last four centuries BC and, more generally, on the complex processes of change and accommodation set in motion by the Roman expansion in Italy. Cult places had a pivotal function among the various 'Italic' tribes known to us from the ancient sources, which had been gradually conquered and subsequently controlled by Rome. Through an analysis of archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence from rural cult places in Central and Southern Italy including a case study on the Samnite temple of San Giovanni in Galdo, the author investigates the fluctuating function of cult places in among the non-Roman Italic communities, before and after the establishment of Roman rule.