- Maria Paola Baglione –
From the outset, Temple B was placed inside a rectangular area defi ned by the north
wall of the temenos including an impressive entrance portico open in the southeast corner
and to the south of the long “hall” defi ned as the “building of the twenty cells.” Covered
by a roof with a single slope, it was decorated by an original system of antefi xes with
complete fi gures, symbolizing the different phases of the day. G. Colonna has proposed
that the cells harbored the priestesses who practiced sacred prostitution, according to a
cult practice imported from the Phoenician area, perhaps from the sanctuary of Aphrodite
on Mount Eryx (Sicily), controlled in the sixth century bc by the Phoenicians.
The close connection with the Phoenician world that characterized the political
program of Caere towards the end of the sixth century bc is revealed by the most
important Etruscan epigraphic discovery of the second half of the twentieth century,
the three gold plaques found in 1964 (see Figure 22.8), together with a fourth plaque in
bronze, in Area C, a small quadrangular space set against the northern wall of Temple B
and intended for open-air cult celebrations, with a courtyard paved with blocks of tuff.
In the quadrangle were placed a cylindrical altar in gray tuff, with a large central hole
that reached an underground cavity, intended for chthonic cults, a second, trapezoidal,
altar in peperino, and a well that provided water essential to the rituals. When the
temple was dismantled in the early third century bc, Area C was considered a sort of
“area of respect” and to the east of the well was built a small enclosure with materials
taken from the temple, in which were laid, carefully folded back on themselves, the three
gold plaques and the bronze plaque. From the parallel texts of two gold plaques, one
in Etruscan and one in Phoenician language, there opens a window into the history of
archaic Caere: the temple with its outbuildings was built and dedicated to the Etruscan
goddess Uni, assimilated to the Phoenician Astarte, by Thefarie Velianas the king-tyrant
of Caere, which places the sanctuary of Pyrgi at the center of philo-Punic politics. The
choice of the decorative program linked to the cycle of Heracles agrees well with the
special attention that the tyrannoi, in Greece as in Italy, reserved for the fi gure of the
hero. The change in the balance of the Tyrrhenian Sea has weighty impacts at Caere as
well: the defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera in 480 bc, mainly engineered by the
Syracusans, marks the beginning of diffi culties in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea for the
Etruscans; further serious defeat suffered by the Etruscans in the waters off Cumae in 474
bc, again at the hands of Syracuse, further reduces the importance of the maritime cities
of Etruria in the Tyrrhenian, instead strengthening the role of Syracuse as champion
of Hellenism. In this profoundly altered political climate very probably the tyranny’s
regime was toppled at Caere, as had happened at Cumae; continuing to regard the
sanctuary of Pyrgi as the point intended to open access to the mother city for foreigners
who sailed in the Tyrrhenian, the new regime vowed the construction of a new and more
imposing temple, Temple A, which will be constructed a little over 20 meters to the
north of its predecessor and perfectly parallel to it, around 470/460 bc. The sacred area
was more than doubled to the north with a second extremely massive clay earthwork;
also the road between Caere and Pyrgi, at the rear of Temple A, will be remodelled
in order to create a courtyard intended for processions, which preceded a monumental
entrance placed behind the temple.
For temple A the native plan of “Tuscanic” type was adopted, with three fl anking
cellae in the back and a deep, shady porch with three rows of columns between
projecting antae (Figure 30.6). More impressive and spectacular than Temple B,
Temple A presented itself to those who arrived from the sea, raised on a wide podium