2005), and even until the time of the empire. In the Sabellic territories, the vitality
of the rural districts is characterized by the building of sometimes monumental
temples. They were built ex pagi decretoor ex pagi sententia, “on the decree of the
pagus,” by the north Oscan populations, Vestini and Paeligni (Letta 1992). Among
other examples, one can note the splendid tripartite temple on a profiled podium from
Castel di Ieri. The inscription in mosaic mentioning the construction ex pagi decreto
dates from the middle of the first century bc(Buonocore 1996). It was found by
the entry of the cella, where the fragments of a marble cult statue of Minerva with
the aegis were also recovered. The famous law of dedication of the Jupiter Liber
temple in the vicus(village) of Furfo (CIL9.3513) dates from 58 bc. Also within
the territory of Vestini, a particularly clear case of continuity of cultural frequenting
can be mentioned: the sanctuary, recently and attentively excavated, of Feronia in
Loreto Aprutino. The small temple with alaebut without a podium, which can be
reconstructed as distyle in antis, was built in the second century bc, perhaps on a
former place of cult. Restored during the Augustan period and endowed with a bronze
cult statue, it provides material datable to the first half of the third centuryad.
Otherwise, the cult continued, but at the cost of change. The sanctuary of Mefitis
in Rossano, Lucania, about which I have already spoken, continued to exist even
after the disappearance in the third century bcof the neighboring settlement in
Serra di Vaglio. The importance of the sanctuary is indicated by the number of
official dedications (in the Oscan language) which were found there. A senator, a
censor, and several quaestors are mentioned, without it being clear to what these
magistratures refer (are they federal? municipal? purely indigenous or under
Romanization in progress?). Beginning in approximately 100 bc(i.e. undoubtedly
with the Social War), the inscriptions are in Latin. The sanctuary is restored for the
last time by Acerronius, in the second half of the first century bcor during the time
of Tiberius. In the imperial time, the cult is transferred to the neighboring muni-
cipiumof Potentia. The magistrates of Potenza, the quattuorviri, continue to make
dedications to Mefitis, who maintains the epiclesis Utiana that she already had in
Rossano (CIL10.131–3).
The cult of Mefitis Utiana, like a certain number of local cults of the peninsula,
thus had to be categorized as municipalia sacra(municipal cults), defined by Festus
(146 L): “One calls municipal cults those owned originally, before the granting of
Roman citizenship; the pontiffs desired that people continue to observe them and
to practice them in the way they had been accustomed to from ancient times (eo
more quo adsuessent antiquitus).” These cults, which people had deliberately chosen
to fossilize in the forms considered original, were undoubtedly those which were
regarded as most representative for the religious identity of the various commun-
ities and Italic ethnic groups. Unfortunately, we do not have the list of them, but
one could be tempted to include the sanctuaries that Virgil mentions in Book VII
of the Aeneid, when he enumerates the people of Italy going into combat in a spirit
which is that of the Augustan restoration of traditional values: the fields of Juno of
Gabii, the Soracte, the sacred grove of Capena (=the lucus Feroniae), the nemus
Angitiae, the sacred grove of Egeria (=the nemus Aricinum), Jupiter Anxur, and
the sacred grove of Feronia.Pre-Roman Italy, Before and Under the Romans 55ACTC04 25/04/2007 09:26 AM Page 55