Chapter II · THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF PRÆNESTE.
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Præneste was already a rich and prosperous community, when Rome was still fighting for a precarious existence. The rapid development, however, of the Latin towns, and the necessity of mutual protection and advancement soon brought Rome and Præneste into a league with the other towns of Latium. Præneste because of her position and wealth was the haughtiest member of the newly made confederation, and with the more rapid growth of Rome became her most hated rival. Later, when Rome passed from a position of first among equals to that of mistress of her former allies, Præneste was her proudest and most turbulent subject.
From the earliest times, when the overland trade between Upper Etruria, Magna Græcia, and Lower Etruria came up the Liris valley, and touching Præneste and Tibur crossed the river Tiber miles above Rome, that energetic little settlement looked with longing on the city that commanded the splendid valley between the Sabine and Volscian mountains. Rome turned her conquests in the direction of her longings, but could get no further than Gabii. Præneste and Tibur were too strongly situated, and too closely connected with the fierce mountaineers of the interior,[158] and Rome was glad to make treaties with them on equal terms.
Rome, however, made the most of her opportunities. Her trade up and down the river increased, and at the same time brought her in touch with other nations more and more. Her political importance grew rapidly, and it was not long before she began to assume the primacy among the towns of the Latin league. This assumption of a leadership practically hers already was disputed by only one city. This was Præneste, and there can be no doubt but that if Præneste had possessed anything approaching the same commercial facilities in way of communication by water she would have been Rome's greatest rival. As late as 374 B.C. Præneste was alone an opponent worthy of Rome.[159]
As head of a league of nine cities,[160] and allied with Tibur, which also headed a small confederacy,[161] Præneste felt herself strong enough to defy the other cities of the league,[162] and in fact even to play fast and loose with Rome, as Rome kept or transgressed the stipulations of their agreements. Rome, however, took advantage of Præneste at every opportunity. She assumed control of some of her land in 338 B.C., on the ground that Præneste helped the Gauls in 390;[163] she showed her jealousy of Præneste by refusing to allow Quintus Lutatius Cerco to consult the lots there during the first Punic war.[164] This jealousy manifested itself again in the way the leader of a contingent from Præneste was treated by a Roman dictator[165] in 319 B.C. But while these isolated outbursts of jealousy showed the ill feeling of Rome toward Præneste, there is yet a stronger evidence of the fact that Præneste had been in early times more than Rome's equal, for through the entire subsequent history of the aggrandizement of Rome at the expense of every other town in the Latin League, there runs a bitterness which finds expression in the slurs cast upon Præneste, an ever-recurring reminder of the centuries of ancient grudge. Often in Roman literature Præneste is mentioned as the typical country town. Her inhabitants are laughed at because of their bad pronunciation, despised and pitied because of their characteristic combination of pride and rusticity. Yet despite the dwindling fortunes of the town she was able to keep a treaty with Rome on nearly equal terms until 90 B.C., the year in which the Julian law was passed.[166] Præneste scornfully refused Roman citizenship in 216 B.C., when it was offered.[167] This refusal Rome never forgot nor forgave. No Prænestine families seem to have been taken into the Roman patriciate, as were some from Alba Longa,[168] nor did Præneste ever send any citizens of note to Rome, who were honored as was Cato from Tusculum,[169] although one branch of the gens Anicia[170] did gain some reputation in imperial times. Rome and Præneste seemed destined to be ever at cross purposes, and their ancient rivalry grew to be a traditional dislike which remained mutual and lasting.
The continuance of the commercial and military rivalry because of Præneste's strategic position as key of Rome, and the religious rivalry due to the great fame of Fortuna Primigenia at Præneste, are continuous and striking historical facts even down into the middle ages. Once in 1297 and again in 1437 the forces of the Pope destroyed the town to crush the great Colonna family which had made Præneste a stronghold against the power of Rome.
There are a great many reasons why Præneste offers the best opportunity for a study of the municipal officers of a town of the Latin league. She kept a practical autonomy longer than any other of the league towns with the exception of Tibur, but she has a much more varied history than Tibur. The inscriptions of Præneste offer especial advantages, because they are numerous and cover a wide range. The great number of the old pigne inscriptions gives a better list of names of the citizens of the second century B.C. and earlier than can be found in any other Latin town.[171] Præneste also has more municipal fasti preserved than any other city, and this fact alone is sufficient reason for a study of municipal officers. In fact, the position which Præneste held during the rise and fall of the Latin League has distinct differences from that of any other town in the confederation, and these differences are to be seen in every stage of her history, whether as an ally, a municipium, or a colonia.
As an ally of Rome, Præneste did not have a curtailed treaty as did Alba Longa,[172] but one on equal terms (foedus æquum), such as was accorded to a sovereign state. This is proved by the right of exile which both Præneste and Tibur still retained until as late as 90 B.C.[173]
As a municipium, the rights of Præneste were shared by only one other city in the league. She was not a municipium which, like Lanuvium and Tusculum,[174] kept a separate state, but whose citizens, although called Roman citizens, were without right to vote, nor, on the other hand, was she in the class of municipia of which Aricia is a type, towns which had no vote in Rome, but were governed from there like a city ward.[175] Præneste, on the contrary, belonged to yet a third class. This was the most favored class of all; in fact, equality was implicit in the agreement with Rome, which was to the effect that when these cities joined the Roman state, the inhabitants were to be, first of all, citizens of their own states.[176] Præneste shared this extraordinary agreement with Rome with but one other Latin city, Tibur. The question whether or not Præneste was ever a municipium in the technical and constitutional sense of the word is apart from the present discussion, and will be taken up later.[177]
As a colony, Præneste has a different history from that of any other of the colonies founded by Sulla. Because of her stubborn defence, and her partisanship for Marius, her walls were razed and her citizens murdered in numbers almost beyond belief. Yet at a later time, Sulla with a revulsion of kindness quite characteristic of him, rebuilt the town, enlarged it, and was most generous in every way. The sentiment which attached to the famous antiquity and renown of Præneste was too strong to allow it to lie in ruins. Further, in colonies the most characteristic officers were the quattuorviri. Præneste, again different, shows no trace of such officers.
Indeed, at all times during the history of Latium, Præneste clearly had a city government different from that of any other in the old Latin League. For example, before the Social War[178] both Præneste and Tibur had ædiles and quæstors, but Tibur also had censors,[179] Præneste did not. Lavinium[180] and Præneste were alike in that they both had prætors. There were dictators in Aricia,[181] Lanuvium,[182] Nomentum,[183] and Tusculum,[184] but no trace of a dictator in Præneste.
The first mention of a magistrate from Præneste, a prætor, in 319 B.C, is due to a joke of the Roman dictator Papirius Cursor.[185] The prætor was in camp as leader of the contingent of allies from Præneste,[186] and the fact that a prætor was in command of the troops sent from allied towns[187] implies that another prætor was at the head of affairs at home. Another and stronger proof of the government by two prætors is afforded by the later duoviral magistracy, and the lack of friction under such an arrangement.
There is no reason to believe that the Latin towns took as models for their early municipal officers, the consuls at Rome, rather than to believe that the reverse was the case. In fact, the change in Rome to the name consuls from prætors,[188] with the continuance of the name prætor in the towns of the Latin League, would rather go to prove that the Romans had given their two chief magistrates a distinctive name different from that in use in the neighboring towns, because the more rapid growth in Rome of magisterial functions demanded official terminology, as the Romans began their "Progressive Subdivision of the Magistracy."[189] Livy says that in 341 B.C. Latium had two prætors,[190] and this shows two things: first, that two prætors were better adapted to circumstances than one dictator; second, that the majority of the towns had prætors, and had had them, as chief magistrates, and not dictators,[191] and that such an arrangement was more satisfactory. The Latin League had had a dictator[192] at its head at some time,[193] and the fact that these two prætors are found at the head of the league in 341 B.C. shows the deference to the more progressive and influential cities of the league, where prætors were the regular and well known municipal chief magistrates. Before Præneste was made a colony by Sulla, the governing body was a senate,[194] and the municipal officers were prætors,[195] ædiles,[196] and quæstors,[197] as we know certainly from inscriptions. In the literature, a prætor is mentioned in 319 B.C.,[198] in 216 B.C.,[199] and again in 173 B.C. implicitly, in a statement concerning the magistrates of an allied city.[200] In fact nothing in the inscriptions or in the literature gives a hint at any change in the political relations between Præneste and Rome down to 90 B.C., the year in which the lex Iulia was passed. If a dictator was ever at the head of the city government in Præneste, there are none of the proofs remaining, such as are found in the towns of the Alban Hills, in Etruria, and in the medix tuticus of the Sabellians. The fact that no trace of the dictator remains either in Tibur or Præneste seems to imply that these two towns had better opportunities for a more rapid development, and that both had prætors at a very early period.[201]
However strongly the weight of probabilities make for proof in the endeavor to find out what the municipal government of Præneste was, there are a certain number of facts that can now be stated positively. Before 90 B.C. the administrative officers of Præneste were two prætors,[202] who had the regular ædiles and quæstors as assistants. These officers were elected by the citizens of the place. There was also a senate, but the qualifications and duties of its members are uncertain. Some information, however, is to be derived from the fact that both city officers and senate were composed in the main of the local nobility.[203]
An important epoch in the history of Præneste begins with the year 91 B.C. In this year the dispute over the extension of the franchise to Italy began again, and the failure of the measure proposed by the tribune M. Livius Drusus led to an Italian revolt, which soon assumed a serious aspect. To mitigate or to cripple this revolt (the so-called Social or Marsic war), a bill was offered and passed in 90 B.C. This was the famous law (lex Iulia) which applied to all Italian states that had not revolted, or had stopped their revolt, and it offered Roman citizenship (civitas) to all such states, with, however, the remarkable provision, IF THEY DESIRED IT.[204] At all events, this law either did not meet the needs of the occasion, or some of the allied states showed no eagerness to accept Rome's offer. Within a few months after the lex Iulia had gone into effect, which was late in the year 90, the lex Plautia Papiria was passed, which offered Roman citizenship to the citizens (cives et incolæ) of the federated cities, provided they handed in their names within sixty days to the city prætor in Rome.[205]
There is no unanimity of opinion as to the status of Præneste in 90 B.C. The reason is twofold. It has never been shown whether Præneste at this time belonged technically to the Latins (Latini) or to the allies (foederati), and it is not known under which of the two laws just mentioned she took Roman citizenship. In 338 B.C., after the close of the Latin war, Præneste and Tibur made either a special treaty[206] with Rome, as seems most likely, or one in which the old status quo was reaffirmed. In 268 B.C. Præneste lost one right of federated cities, that of coinage,[207] but continued to hold the right of a sovereign city, that of exile (ius exilii) in 171 B.C.,[208] in common with Tibur and Naples,[209] and on down to the year 90 at any rate (see note 9). It is to be remembered too that in the year 216 B.C., after the heroic deeds of the Prænestine cohort at Casilinum, the inhabitants of Præneste were offered Roman citizenship, and that they refused it.[210] Now if the citizens of Præneste accepted Roman citizenship in 90 B.C., under the conditions of the Julian law (lex Iulia de civitate sociis danda), then they were still called allies (socii) at that time.[211] But that the provision in the law, namely, citizenship, if the allies desired it, did not accomplish its purpose, is clear from the immediate passage in 89 of the lex Plautia-Papiria.[212] Probably there was some change of phraseology which was obnoxious in the Iulia. The traditional touchiness and pride of the Prænestines makes it sure that they resisted Roman citizenship as long as they could, and it seems more likely that it was under the provision of the Plautia-Papiria than under those of the Iulia that separate citizenship in Præneste became a thing of the past. Two years later, in 87 B.C., when, because of the troubles between the two consuls Cinna and Octavius, Cinna had been driven from Rome, he went out directly to Præneste and Tibur, which had lately been received into citizenship,[213] tried to get them to revolt again from Rome, and collected money for the prosecution of the war. This not only shows that Præneste had lately received Roman citizenship, but implies also that Rome thus far had not dared to assume any control of the city, or the consul would not have felt so sure of his reception.
WAS PRÆNESTE A MUNICIPIUM?
Just what relation Præneste bore to Rome between 90 or 89 B.C., when she accepted Roman citizenship, and 82 B.C. when Sulla made her a colony, is still an unsettled question. Was Præneste made a municipium by Rome, did Præneste call herself a municipium, or, because the rights which she enjoyed and guarded as an ally (civitas foederata) had been so restricted and curtailed, was she called and considered a municipium by Rome, but allowed to keep the empty substance of the name of an allied state?
During the development which followed the gradual extension of Roman citizenship to the inhabitants of Italy, because of the increase of the rights of autonomy in the colonies, and the limitation of the rights formerly enjoyed by the cities which had belonged to the old confederation or league (foederati), there came to be small difference between a colonia and a municipium. While the nominal difference seems to have still held in legal parlance, in the literature the two names are often interchanged.[214] Mommsen-Marquardt say[215] that in 90 B.C. under the conditions of the lex Iulia Præneste became a municipium of the type which kept its own citizenship (ut municipes essent suæ cuiusque civitatis).[216] But if this were true, then Præneste would have come under the jurisdiction of the city prætor (prætor urbanus) in Rome, and there would be præfects to look after cases for him. Præneste has a very large body of inscriptions which extend from the earliest to the latest times, and which are wider in range than those of any other town in Latium outside Rome. But no inscription mentions a præfect and here under the circumstances the argumentum ex silentio is of real constructive value, and constitutes circumstantial evidence of great weight.[217] Præneste had lost her ancient rights one after the other, but it is sure that she clung the longest to the separate property right. Now the property in a municipium is not considered as Roman, a result of the old sovereign state idea, as given by the ius Quiritium and ius Gabinorum, although Mommsen says this had no real practical value.[218] So whether Præneste received Roman citizenship in 90 or in 89 B.C. the spirit of her past history makes it certain that she demanded a clause which gave specific rights to the old federated states, such as had always been in her treaty with Rome.[219] There seems to have been no such clause in the lex Iulia of 90 B.C., and this fact gives still another reason, in addition to the ones mentioned, to conclude that Præneste probably took citizenship in 89 under the lex Plautia-Papiria. The extreme cruelty which Sulla used toward Præneste,[220] and the great amount of its land[221] that he took for his soldiers when he colonized the place, show that Sulla not only punished the city because it had sided with Marius, but that the feeling of a Roman magistrate was uppermost, and that he was now avenging traditional grievances, as well as punishing recent obstreperousness.
There seems to be, however, very good reasons for saying that Præneste never became a municipium in the strict legal sense of the word. First, the particular officials who belong to a municipium, præfects and quattuorvirs, are not found at all;[222] second, the use of the word municipium in literature in connection with Præneste is general, and means simply "town";[223] third, the fact that Præneste, along with Tibur, had clung so jealously to the title of federated state (civitas foederata) from some uncertain date to the time of the Latin rebellion, and more proudly than ever from 338 to 90 B.C., makes it very unlikely that so great a downfall of a city's pride would be passed over in silence; fourth and last, the fact that the Prænestines asked the emperor Tiberius to give them the status of a municipium,[224] which he did,[225] but it seems (see note 60) with no change from the regular city officials of a colony,[226] shows clearly that the Prænestines simply took advantage of the fact that Tiberius had just recovered from a severe illness at Præneste[227] to ask him for what was merely an empty honor. It only salved the pride of the Prænestines, for it gave them a name which showed a former sovereign federated state, and not the name of a colony planted by the Romans.[228] The cogency of this fourth reason will bear elaboration. Præneste would never have asked for a return to the name municipium if it had not meant something. At the very best she could not have been a real municipium with Roman citizenship longer than seven years, 89 to 82 B.C., and that at a very unsettled time, nor would an enforced taking of the status of a municipium, not to mention the ridiculously short period which it would have lasted, have been anything to look back to with such pride that the inhabitants would ask the emperor Tiberius for it again. What they did ask for was the name municipium as they used and understood it, for it meant to them everything or anything but colonia.
Let us now sum up the municipal history of Præneste down to 82 B.C. when she was made a Roman colony by Sulla. Præneste, from the earliest times, like Rome, Tusculum, and Aricia, was one of the chief cities in the territory known as Ancient Latium. Like these other cities, Præneste made herself head of a small league,[229] but unlike the others, offers nothing but comparative probability that she was ever ruled by kings or dictators. So of prime importance not only in the study of the municipal officers of Præneste, but also in the question of Præneste's relationship to Rome, is the fact that the evidence from first to last is for prætors as the chief executive officers of the Prænestine state (respublica), with their regular attendant officers, ædiles and quæstors; all of whom probably stood for office in the regular succession (cursus honorum). Above these officers was a senate, an administrative or advisory body. But although Præneste took Roman citizenship either in 90 or 89 B.C.,[213] it seems most likely that she was not legally termed a municipium, but that she came in under some special clause, or with some particular understanding, whereby she kept her autonomy, at least in name. Præneste certainly considered herself a federate city, on the old terms of equality with Rome, she demanded and partially retained control of her own land, and preserved her freedom from Rome in the matter of city elections and magistrates.
PRÆNESTE AS A COLONY.
From the time of Sulla to the establishment of the monarchy, the expropriation of territory for discharged soldiers found its expression in great part in the change from Italian cities to colonies,[230] and of the colonies newly made by Sulla, Præneste was one. The misfortunes that befell Præneste, because she seemed doomed to be on the losing side in quarrels, were never more disastrously exemplified than in the punishment inflicted upon her by Sulla, because she had taken the side of Marius. Thousands of her citizens were killed (see note 220), her fortifications were thrown down, a great part of her territory was taken and given to Sulla's soldiers, who were the settlers of his new-made colony. At once the city government of Præneste changed. Instead of a senate, there was now a decuria (decuriones, ordo); instead of prætors, duovirs with judicial powers (iure dicundo), in short, the regular governmental officialdom for a Roman colony. The city offices were filled partly by the new colonists, and the new government which was forced upon her was so thoroughly established, that Præneste remained a colony as long as her history can be traced in the inscriptions. As has been said, in the time of Tiberius she got back an empty title, that of municipium, but it had been nearly forgotten again by Hadrian's time.
There are several unanswered questions which arise at this point. What was the distribution of offices in the colony after its foundation; what regulation, if any, was there as to the proportion of officials to the new make up of the population; and what and who were the quinquennial duovirs? From the proportionately large fragments of municipal fasti left from Præneste it will be possible to reach some conclusions that may be of future value.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICES.
The beginning of this question comes from a passage in Cicero,[231] which says that the Sullan colonists in Pompeii were preferred in the offices, and had a status of citizenship better than that of the old inhabitants of the city. Such a state of affairs might also seem natural in a colony which had just been deprived of one third of its land, and had had forced upon it as citizens a troop of soldiers who naturally would desire to keep the city offices as far as possible in their own control.[232] Dessau thinks that because this unequal state of citizenship was found in Pompeii, which was a colony of Sulla's, it must have been found also in Præneste, another of his colonies.[233] Before entering into the question of whether or not this can be proved, it will be well to mention three probable reasons why Dessau is wrong in his contention. The first, an argumentum ex silentio, is that if there was trouble in Pompeii between the old inhabitants and the new colonists then the same would have been true in Præneste! As it was so close to Rome, however, the trouble would have been much better known, and certainly Cicero would not have lost a chance to bring the state of affairs at Præneste also into a comparison. Second, the great pains Sulla took to rebuild the walls of Præneste, to lay out a new forum, and especially to make such an extensive enlargement and so many repairs of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia, show that his efforts were not entirely to please his new colonists, but just as much to try to defer to the wishes and civic pride of the old settlers. Third, the fact that a great many of the old inhabitants were left, despite the great slaughter at the capture of the city, is shown by the frequent recurrence in later inscriptions of the ancient names of the city, and by the fact that within twenty years the property of the soldier colonists had been bought up,[234] and the soldiers had died, or had moved to town, or reenlisted for foreign service. Had there been much trouble between the colonists and the old inhabitants, or had the colonists taken all the offices, in either case they would not have been so ready to part with their land, which was a sort of patent to citizenship.
It is possible now to push the inquiry a point further. Dessau has already seen[235] that in the time of Augustus members of the old families were again in possession of many municipal offices, but he thinks the Prænestines did not have as good municipal rights as the colonists in the years following the establishment of the colony. There are six inscriptions[236] which contain lists more or less fragmentary of the magistrates of Præneste, the duovirs, the ædiles, and the quæstors. Two of these inscriptions can be dated within a few years, for they show the election of Germanicus and Drusus Cæsar, and of Nero and Drusus, the sons of Germanicus, to the quinquennial duovirate.[237] Two others[238] are certainly pieces of the same fasti because of several peculiarities,[239] and one other, a fragment, belongs to still another calendar.[240] It will first be necessary to show that these last-mentioned inscriptions can be referred to some time not much later than the founding of the colony at Præneste by Sulla, before any use can be made of the names in the list to prove anything about the early distribution of officers in the colony. Two of these inscriptions[238] should be placed, I think, very early in the annals of the colony. They show a list of municipal officers whose names, with a single exception, which will be accounted for later, have only prænomen and nomen, a way of writing names which was common to the earlier inhabitants of Præneste, and which seems to have made itself felt here in the names of the colonists.[241] Again, from the fact that in the only place in the inscriptions where the quinquennialship is mentioned, it is the simple term, without the prefixed duoviri. In the later inscriptions from imperial times,[237] both forms are found, while in the year 31 A.D. in the municipal fasti of Nola[242] are found II vir(i) iter(um) q(uinquennales), and in 29 B.C. in the fasti from Venusia,[243] officials with the same title, duoviri quinquennales, which show that the officers of the year in which the census was taken were given both titles. Marquardt makes this a proof that the quinquennial title shows nothing more than a function of the regular duovir.[244] It is certain too that after the passage of the lex Iulia in 45 B.C., that the census was taken in the Italian towns at the same time as in Rome, and the reports sent to the censor in Rome.[245] This duty was performed by the duovirs with quinquennial power, also often called censorial power.[246] The inscriptions under consideration, then, would seem to date certainly before 49 B.C.
Another reason for placing these inscriptions in the very early days of the colony is derived from the use of names. In this list of officials[247] there is a duovir by the name of P. Cornelius, and another whose name is lost except for the cognomen, Dolabella, but he can be no other than a Cornelius, for this cognomen belongs to that family.[248] Early in the life of the colony, immediately after its settlement, during the repairs and rebuilding of the city's monuments,[249] while the soldiers from Sulla's army were the new citizens of the town, would be the time to look for men in the city offices whose election would have been due to Sulla, or would at least appear to have been a compliment to him. Sulla was one of the most famous of the family of the Cornelii, and men of the gens Cornelia might well have expected preferment during the early years of the colony. That such was the case is shown here by the recurrence of the name Cornelius in the list of municipal officers in two succeeding years. Now if the name "Cornelia" grew to be a name in great disfavor in Præneste, the reason would be plain enough. The destruction of the town, the loss of its ancient liberties, and the change in its government, are more than enough to assure hatred of the man who had been the cause of the disasters. And there is proof too that the Prænestines did keep a lasting dislike to the name "Cornelia." There are many inscriptions of Præneste which show the names (nomina) Ælia, Antonia, Aurelia, Claudia, Flavia, Iulia, Iunia, Marcia, Petronia, Valeria, among others, but besides the two Cornelii in this inscription under consideration, and one other[250] mentioned in the fragment above (see note 83), there are practically no people of that name found in Præneste,[251] and the name is frequent enough in other towns of the old Latin league. From these reasons, namely, the way in which only prænomina and nomina are used, the simple, earlier use of quinquennalis, and especially the appearance of the name Cornelius here, and never again until in the late empire, it follows that the names of the municipal officers of Præneste given in these inscriptions certainly date between 81 and 50 B.C.[252]
THE REGULATIONS ABOUT OFFICIALS.
The question now arises whether the new colonists had better rights legally than the old citizens, and whether they had the majority of votes and elected city officers from their own number. The inscriptions with which we have to deal are both fragments of lists of city officers, and in the longer of the two, one gives the officers for four years, the corresponding column for two years and part of a third. A Dolabella, who belongs to the gens Cornelia, as we have seen, heads the list as duovir. The ædile for the same year is a certain Rotanius.[253] This name is not found in the sepulchral inscriptions of the city of Rome, nor in the inscriptions of Præneste except in this one instance. This man is certainly one of the new colonists, and probably a soldier from North Italy.[254] Both the quæstors of the same year are given. They are M. Samiarius and Q. Flavius. Samiarius is one of the famous old names of Præneste.[255] In the same way, the duovirs of the next year, C. Messienus and P. Cornelius, belong, the one to Præneste, the other to the colonists,[256] and just such an arrangement is also found in the ædiles, Sex. Cæsius being a Prænestine[257], L. Nassius a colonist. Q. Caleius and C. Sertorius, the quæstors of the same year, do not appear in the inscriptions of Præneste except here, and it is impossible to say more than that Sertorius is a good Roman name, and Caleius a good north Italian one.[258] C. Salvius and T. Lucretius, duovirs for the next year, the recurrence of Salvius in another inscription,[259] L. Curtius and C. Vibius, the ædiles,—Statiolenus and C. Cassius, the quæstors, show the same phenomenon, for it seems quite possible from other inscriptional evidence to claim Salvius, Vibius,[260] and Statiolenus[261] as men from the old families of Præneste. The quinquennalis for the next year, M. Petronius, has a name too widely prevalent to allow any certainty as to his native place, but the nomen Petronia and Ptronia is an old name in Præneste.[262] In the second column of the inscription, although the majority of the names there seem to belong to the new colonists, as those in the first column do to the old settlers, there are two names, Q. Arrasidius and T. Apponius, which do not make for the argument either way.[263] In the smaller fragment there are but six names: M. Decumius and L. Ferlidius, C. Paccius and C. Ninn(ius), C. Albinius and Sex. Capivas, but from these one gets only good probabilities. The nomen Decumia is well attested in Præneste before the time of Sulla.[264] In fact the same name, M. Decumius, is among the old pigne inscriptions.[265] Paccia has been found this past year in Prænestine territory, and may well be an old Prænestine name, for the inscriptions of a family of the name Paccia have come to light at Gallicano.[266] Capivas is at least not a Roman name,[267] but from its scarcity in other places can as well be one of the names that are so frequent in Præneste, which show Etruscan or Sabine formation, and which prove that before Sulla's time the city had a great many inhabitants who had come from Etruria and from back in the Sabine mountains. Ninnius[268] is a name not found elsewhere in the Latian towns, but the name belonged to the nobility near Capua,[269] and is found also in Pompeii[270] and Puteoli.[271] It seems a fair supposition to make at the outset, as we have seen that various writers on Præneste have done, that the new colonists would try to keep the highest office to themselves, at any rate, particularly the duovirate. But a study of the names, as has been the case with the less important officers, fails even to bear this out.[272] These lists of municipal officers show a number of names that belong with certainty to the older families of Præneste, and thus warrant the statement that the colonists did not have better rights than the old settlers, and that not even in the duovirate, which held an effective check (maior potestas)[273] on the ædiles and quæstors, can the names of the new colonists be shown to outnumber or take the place of the old settlers.
THE QUINQUENNALES.
There remains yet the question in regard to the men who filled the quinquennial office. We know that whether the officials of the municipal governments were prætors, ædiles, duovirs, or quattuorvirs, at intervals of five years their titles either were quinquennales,[274] or had that added to them, and that this title implied censorial duties.[275] It has also been shown that after 46 B.C. the lex Iulia compelled the census in the various Roman towns to be taken by the proper officers in the same year that it was done in Rome. This implies that the taking of the census had been so well established a custom that it was a long time before Rome itself had cared to enact a law which changed the year of census taking in those towns which had not of their own volition made their census contemporaneous with that in Rome.
That the duration of the quinquennial office was one year is certain,[276] that it was eponymous is also sure,[277] but whether the officers who performed these duties every five years did so in addition to holding the highest office of the year, or in place of that honor, is a question not at all satisfactorily answered. That is, were the men who held the quinquennial office the men who would in all probability have stood for the duovirate in the regular succession of advance in the round of offices (cursus honorum), or did the government at Rome in some way, either directly or indirectly, name the men for the highest office in that particular year when the census was to be taken? That is, again, were quinquennales elected as the other city officials were, or were they appointed by Rome, or were they merely designated by Rome, and then elected in the proper and regular way by the citizens of the towns?
At first glance it seems most natural to suppose that Rome would want exact returns from the census, and might for that reason try to dictate the men who were to take it, for on the census had been based always the military taxes, contingents, etc.[278] The first necessary inquiry is whether the quinquennales were men who previously had held office as quæstors or ædiles, and the best place to begin such a search is in the municipal calendars (fasti magistratuum municipalium), which give the city officials with their rank.
There are fragments left of several municipal fasti; the one which gives the longest unbroken list is that from Venusia,[279] which gives the full list of the city officials of the years 34-29 B.C., and the ædiles of 35, and both the duovirs and prætors of the first half of 28 B.C. In 29 B.C., L. Oppius and L. Livius were duoviri quinquennales. These are both good old Roman names, and stand out the more in contrast with Narius, Mestrius, Plestinus, and Fadius, the ædiles and quæstors. Neither of these quinquennales had held any office in the five preceding years at all events. One of the two quæstors of the year 33 B.C. is a L. Cornelius. The next year a L. Cornelius, with the greatest probability the same man, is præfect, and again in the year 30 he is duovir. Also in the year 32 L. Scutarius is quæstor, and in the last half of 31 is duovir. C. Geminius Niger is ædile in 30, and duovir in 28. So what we learn is that a L. Cornelius held the quæstorship one year, was a præfect the next, and later a regularly elected duovir; that L. Scutarius went from quæstor one year to duovir the next, without an intervening office, and but a half year of intervening time; and that C. Geminius Niger was successively ædile and duovir with a break of one year between.
The fasti of Nola[280] give the duovirs and ædiles for four years, 29-32 A.D., but none of the ædiles mentioned rose to the duovirate within the years given. Nor do we get any help from the fasti of Interamna Lirenatis[281] or Ostia,[282] so the only other calendar we have to deal with is the one from Præneste, the fragments of which have been partially discussed above.
The text of that piece[283] which dates from the first years of Tiberius' reign is so uncertain that one gets little information from it. But certainly the M. Petronius Rufus who is præfect for Drusus Cæsar is the same as the Petronius Rufus who in another place is duovir. The name of C. Dindius appears twice also, once with the office of ædile, but two years later seemingly as ædile again, which must be a mistake. M. Cominius Bassus is made quinquennalis by order of the senate, and also made præfect for Germanicus and Drusus Cæsar in their quinquennial year. He is not found in any other inscription, and is otherwise unknown.[284] The only other men who attained the quinquennial rank in Præneste were M. Petronius,[285] and some man with the cognomen Minus,[286] neither of whom appears anywhere else. A man with the cognomen Sedatus is quæstor in one year, and without holding other office is made præfect to the sons of Germanicus, Nero and Drusus, who were nominated quinquennales two years later.[287] There is no positive proof in any of the fasti that any quinquennalis was elected from one of the lower magistrates. There is proof that duovirs were elected, who had been ædiles or quæstors. Also it has been shown that in two cases men who had been quæstors were made præfects, that is, appointees of people who had been nominated quinquennales as an honor, and who had at once appointed præfects to carry out their duties.
Another question of importance rises here. Who were the quinquennales? They were not always inhabitants of the city to the office of which they had been nominated, as has been shown in the cases of Drusus and Germanicus Cæsar, and Nero and Drusus the sons of Germanicus, nominated or elected quinquennales at Præneste, and represented in both cases by præfects appointed by them.[288]
From Ostia comes an inscription which was set up by the grain measurers' union to Q. Petronius Q.f. Melior, etc.,[289] prætor of a small town some ten miles from Ostia, and also quattuorvir quinquennalis of Fæsulæ, a town above Florence, which seems to show that he was sent to Fæsulæ as a quinquennalis, for the honor which he had held previously was that of prætor in Laurentum.
At Tibur, in Hadrian's time, a L. Minicius L.f. Gal. Natalis Quadromius Verus, who had held offices previously in Africa, in Moesia, and in Britain, was made quinquennalis maximi exempli. It seems certain that he was not a resident of Tibur, and since he was not appointed as præfect by Hadrian, it seems quite reasonable to think that either the emperor had a right to name a quinquennalis, or that he was asked to name one,[290] when one remembers the proximity of Hadrian's great villa, and the deference the people of Tibur showed the emperor. There is also in Tibur an inscription to a certain Q. Pompeius Senecio, etc.—(the man had no less than thirty-eight names), who was an officer in Asia in 169 A.D., a præfect of the Latin games (præfectus feriarum Latinarum), then later a quinquennalis of Tibur, after which he was made patron of the city (patronus municipii).[291] A Roman knight, C. Æmilius Antoninus, was first quinquennalis, then patronus municipii at Tibur.[292]
N. Cluvius M'. f.[293] was a quattuorvir at Caudium, a duovir at Nola, and a quattuorvir quinquennalis at Capua, which again shows that a quinquennalis need not have been an official previously in the town in which he held the quinquennial office.
C. Mænius C.f. Bassus[294] was ædile and quattuorvir at Herculaneum and then after holding the tribuneship of a legion is found next at Præneste as a quinquennalis.
M. Vettius M.f. Valens[295] is called in an inscription duovir quinquennalis of the emperor Trajan, which shows not an appointment from the emperor in his place, for that would have been as a præfect, but rather that the emperor had nominated him, as an imperial right. This man held a number of priestly offices, was patron of the colony of Ariminum, and is called optimus civis.
Another inscription shows plainly that a man who had been quinquennalis in his own home town was later made quinquennalis in a colony founded by Augustus, Hispellum.[296] This man, C. Alfius, was probably nominated quinquennalis by the emperor.
C. Pompilius Cerialis,[297] who seems to have held only one other office, that of præfect to Drusus Cæsar in an army legion, was duovir iure dicundo quinquennalis in Volaterræ.
M. Oppius Capito was not only quinquennalis twice at Auximum, patron of that and another colony, but he was patron of the municipium of Numana, and also quinquennalis.[298]
Q. Octavius L.f. Sagitta was twice quinquennalis at Superæquum, and held no other offices.[299]
Again, particularly worthy of notice is the fact that when L. Septimius L.f. Calvus, who had been ædile and quattuorvir at Teate Marrucinorum, was given the quinquennial rights, it was of such importance that it needed especial mention, and that such mention was made by a decree of the city senate,[300] shows clearly that such a method of getting a quinquennalis was out of the ordinary.
M. Nasellius Sabinus of Beneventum[301] has the title Augustalis duovir quinquennalis, and no other title but that of præfect of a cohort.
C. Egnatius Marus of Venusia was flamen of the emperor Tiberius, pontifex, and præfectus fabrum, and three times duovir quinquennalis, which seems to show a deference to a man who was the priest of the emperor, and seems to preclude an election by the citizens after a regular term of other offices.[302]
Q. Laronius was a quinquennalis at Vibo Valentia by order of the senate, which again shows the irregularity of the choice.[303]
M. Træsius Faustus was quinquennalis of Potentia, but died an inhabitant of Atinæ in Lucania.[304]
M. Alleius Luccius Libella, who was ædile and duovir in Pompeii,[305] was not elected quinquennalis, but made præfectus quinquennalis, which implies appointment.
M. Holconius Celer was a priest of Augustus, and with no previous city offices is mentioned as quinquennalis-elect, which can perhaps as well mean nominated by the emperor, as designated by the popular vote.[306]
P. Sextilius Rufus,[307] ædile twice in Nola, is quinquennalis in Pompeii. As he was chosen by the old inhabitants of Nola to their senate, this would show that he belonged probably to the new settlers in the colony introduced by Augustus, and for some reason was called over also to Pompeii to take the quinquennial office.
L. Aufellius Rufus at Cales was advanced from the position of primipilus of a legion to that of quinquennalis, without having held any other city offices, but he was flamen of the deified emperor (Divus Augustus), and patron of the city.[308]
M. Barronius Sura went directly to quinquennalis without being ædile or quæstor, in Aquinum.[309]
Q. Decius Saturninus was a quattuorvir at Verona, but a quinquennalis at Aquinum.[310]
The quinquennial year seems to have been the year in which matters of consequence were more likely to be done than at other times.
In 166 A.D. in Ostia a dedication was of importance enough to have the names of both the consuls of the year and the duoviri quinquennales at the head of the inscription.[311]
The year that C. Cuperius and C. Arrius were quinquennales with censorial power (II vir c.p.q.) in Ostia, there was a dedication of some importance in connection with a tree that had been struck by lightning.[312]
In Gabii a decree in honor of the house of Domitia Augusta was passed in the year when there were quinquennales.[313]
In addition to the fact that the emperors were sometimes chosen quinquennales, the consuls were too. M'. Acilius Glabrio, consul ordinarius of 152 A.D., was made patron of Tibur and quinquennalis designatus.[314]
On the other hand, against this array of facts, are others just as certain, if not so cogent or so numerous. From the inscriptions painted on the walls in Pompeii, we know that in the first century A.D. men were recommended as quinquennales to the voters. But although there seems to be a large list of such inscriptions, they narrow down a great deal, and in comparison with the number of duovirs, they are considerably under the proportion one would expect, for instead of being as 1 to 4, they are really only as 1 to 19.[315] What makes the candidacy for quinquennialship seem a new and unaccustomed thing is the fact that the appeals for votes which are painted here and there on the walls are almost all recommendations for just two men.[316]
There are quinquennales who were made patrons of the towns in which they held the office, but who held no other offices there (1); some who were both quæstors and ædiles or prætors (2); quinquennales of both classes again who were not made patrons (3, 4); præfects with quinquennial power (5); quinquennales who go in regular order through the quattuorviral offices (6); those who go direct to the quinquennial rank from the tribunate of the soldiers (7); and (8) a VERY FEW who have what seems to be the regular order of lower offices first, quæstor, ædile or prætor, duovir, and then quinquennalis.[317]
The sum of the facts collected is as follows: the quinquennales are proved to have been elective officers in Pompeii. The date, however, is the third quarter of the first century A.D., and the office may have been but recently thrown open to election, as has been shown. Quinquennales who have held other city offices are very, very few, and they appear in inscriptions of fairly late date.
On the other hand, many quinquennales are found who hold that office and no other in the city, men who certainly belong to other towns, many who from their nomination as patrons of the colony or municipium, are clearly seen to have held the quinquennial power also as an honor given to an outsider. In what municipal fasti we have, we find no quinquennalis whose name appears at all previously in the list of city officials.
The fact that the lex Iulia in 45 B.C. compelled the census to be taken everywhere else in the same year as in Rome shows at all events that the census had been taken in certain places at other times, whether with an implied supervision from Rome or not, and the later positive evidence that the emperors and members of the imperial family, and consuls, who were nominated quinquennales, always appointed præfects in their places, who with but an exception or two were not city officials previously, certainly tends to show that at some time the quinquennial office had been influenced in some way from Rome. The appointment of outside men as an honor would then be a survival of the custom of having outsiders for quinquennales, in many places doubtless a revival of a custom which had been in abeyance, to honor the imperial family.
In Præneste, as in other colonies, it seems reasonable that Rome would want to keep her hand on affairs to some extent. Rome imposed on the colonies their new kind of officials, and in the fixing of duties and rights, what is more likely than that Rome would reserve a voice in the choice of those officials who were to turn in the lists on which Rome had to depend for the census?
Rome always made different treaties and understandings with her allies; according to circumstances, she made different arrangements with different colonies; even Sulla's own colonies show a vast difference in the treatment accorded them, for the plan was to conciliate the old inhabitants if they were still numerous enough to make it worth while, and the gradual change is most clearly shown by its crystallization in the lex Iulia of 45 B.C.
The evidence seems to warrant the following conclusions in regard to the quinquennales: From the first they were the most important city officials; they were elected by the people from the first, but were men who had been recommended in some way, or had been indorsed beforehand by the central government in Rome; they were not necessarily men who had held office previously in the city to which they were elected quinquennales; with the spread of the feeling of real Roman citizenship the necessity for indorsement from Rome fell into abeyance; magistrates were elected who had every expectation of going through the series of municipal offices in the regular way to the quinquennialship; and the later election of emperors and others to the quinquennial office was a survival of the habitual realization that this most honorable of city offices had some connection with the central authority, whatever that happened to be, and was not an integral part of municipal self government.
Such are some of the questions which a study of the municipal officers of Præneste has raised. It would be both tedious and unnecessary to enumerate again the offices which were held in Præneste during her history, but an attempt to place such a list in a tabular way is made in the following pages.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE MUNICIPAL OFFICERS OF PRÆNESTE.
NAME. OFFICE. C.I.L. (XIV.)
Drusus Cæsar Germanicus Cæsar Quinq. 2964
Nero et Drusus Germanici filii Quinq. 2965
Nero Cæsar, between 51-54 A.D. IIvir Quinq. 2995
— Accius ... us Q 2964
P. Acilius P.f. Paullus, 243 A.D. Q. Æd. IIvir. 2972
L. Aiacius Q 2964
C. Albinius Æd (?) 2968
M. Albinius M.f. Æd, IIvir, IIvir Quinq. 2974
M. Anicius (Livy VIII, 11, 4) Pr.
M. Anicius L.f. Baaso Æd. 2975
P. Annius Septimus IIvir. 4091, 1
(M). Antonius Subarus[318] IIvir. 4091, 18
Aper, see Voesius.
T. Aponius Q 2966
P. Aquilius Gallus IIvir. 4091, 2
Q. Arrasidius Æd. 2966
C. Arrius Q 2964
M. Atellius Q 2964
Attalus, see Claudius.
Baaso, see Anicius.
Bassus, see Cominius.
C. Cæcilius Æd. 2964
C. Cæsius M.f. IIvir quinq. 2980
Sex. Cæsius Æd. 2966
Q. Caleius Q 2966
Canies, see Saufeius.
Sex. Capivas Q (?) 2968
C. Cassius Q 2966
Celsus, see Mæsius.
Ti. Claudius Attalus Mamilianus IIvir. Not. d. Scavi. 1894, p. 96.
M (?), Cominius Bassus Quinq. Præf. 2964
— Cordus Q 2964
P. Cornelius IIvir. 2966
— (Cornelius) Dolabella IIvir. 2966
— (Corn)elius Rufus Æd. 2967
L. Curtius Æd. 2966
— Cur(tius) Sura IIvir. 2964
M. Decumius Q (?) 2968
T. Diadumenius (see Antonius Subarus) IIvir. 4091, 18
C. Dindius Æd. 2964
Dolabella, see Cornelius. (Also Chap. II, n. 250.)
— Egnatius IIvir. 4091,3
Cn. Egnatius Æd. 2964
L. Fabricius C.f. Vaarus Æd. Not. d. Scavi. 1907, p. 137.
C. Feidenatius Pr. 2999
L. Ferlidius Q (?) 2968
Fimbria, see Geganius.
Flaccus, see Saufeius.
C. Flavius L.f. IIvir quinq. 2980
Q. Flavius Q 2966
T. Flavius T.f. Germanus 181 A.D. Æd. IIvir. IIvir. QQ 2922
— (Fl)avius Musca Q 2965
Gallus, see Aquilius.
Sex. Geganius Finbria IIvir. 4091, 1
Germanus, see Flavius.
— [I]nstacilius Æd. 2964
C. Iuc ... Rufus[319] Q 2964
Lælianus, see Lutatius.
M'. Later ...[320] (See Add. 4091, 12) Q 4091, 12
T. Livius Æd. 2964
T. Long ... Priscus IIvir. 4091, 4
T. Lucretius IIvir. 2966
Sex. Lutatius Q.f. Lælianus Oppianicus Petronianu Pr. 2930
— Macrin(ius) Nerian(us) Æd. 4091, 10
Sex. Mæsius Sex. f. Celsus Q. Æd. IIvir. 2989
L. Mag(ulnius) M.f. Q 4091, 13
C. Magulnius C.f. Scato Q 2990
C. Magulnius C.f. Scato Maxs(umus) Pr. 2906
M. Magulnius Sp. f.M.n. Scato. Pr.(?) 3008
Mamilianus, see Claudius.
— Manilei Post A(e)d. 2964
— Mecanius IIvir. 4091, 5
M. Mersieius C.f. Æd. 2975
C. Messienus IIvir. 2966
Q. Mestrius IIvir. 4091, 6
— — Minus Quinq. 2964
Musca, see Flavius.
L. Nassius Æd. 2966
M. Naut(ius) Q 4091, 14
Nerianus, see Macrinius.
C. Ninn(ius) IIvir.(?) 2968
Oppianicus, see Lutatius.
L. Orcevius Pr. 2902
C. Orcivi(us) Pr. IIvir. 2994
C. Paccius IIvir. (?) 2968
Paullus, see Acilius.
L. Petisius Potens IIvir. 2964
Petronianus, see Lutatius.
M. Petronius Quinq. 2966
(M). Petronius Rufus IIvir. 2964
M. Petronius Rufus Quinq. Præf. 2964
Planta, see Treb ... ti
C. Pom pei us IIvir. 2964
Sex. Pomp(eius) IIvir. Præf. 2995
Pontanus, see Saufeius.
Potens, see Petisius.
Prænestinus prætor (Chap. II, n. 185.) Livy IX, 16, 17.
Priscus, see Long ...
Pulcher, see Vettius.
— Punicus Lig ... IIvir. 2964
C. Ræcius IIvir. 2964
M. Ræcius Q 2964
— Rotanius Æd 2966
Rufus, see Cornelius, Iuc ..., Petronius, Tertius.
Rutilus, see Saufeius.
T. Sabidius Sabinus IIvir. Not. d. Scavi. 1894, p. 96.
— — Sabinus Q 2967
C. Salvius IIvir. 2966
C. Salvius IIvir. 2964
M. Samiarius Q 2966
C. Sa(mi)us Pr. 2999
— Saufei(us) Pr. IIvir. 2994
M. Saufe(ius) ... Canies Aid. Not. d. Scavi. 1907, p. 137.
C. Saufeius C.f. Flaccus Pr. 2906
C. Saufeius C.f. Flacus Q 3002
L. Saufeius C.f. Flaccus Q 3001
C. Saufeius C.f. Pontanus Æd. 3000
M. Saufeius L.f. Pontanus Æd. 3000
M. Saufeius M.f. Rutilus Q 3002
Scato, see Magulnius.
P. Scrib(onius) IIvir. 4091, 3
— — Sedatus Q. Pr(æf). 2965
Septimus, see Annius.
C. Sertorius Q 2966
Q. Spid Q (?) 2969
— Statiolenus Q 2966
L. Statius Sal. f. IIvir. 3013
Subarus, see Antonius.
C. Tampius C.f. Tarenteinus Pr. 2890
C. Tappurius IIvir. 4091, 6
Tarenteinus, see Tampius.
— Tedusius T. (f.) IIvir. 3012a
M. Tere ... Cl ... IIvir. 4091, 7
— Tert(ius) Rufus IIvir. 2998
C. Thorenas Q 2964
L. Tondeius L.f.M.n. Pr. (?) 3008
C. Treb ... Pianta IIvir. 4091, 4
(Se)x. Truttidius IIvir. 2964
Vaarus, see Fabricius.
— (?)cius Valer(ianus) Q 2967
M. Valerius Q 2964
Varus, see Voluntilius. Æd. (?) 2964
— Vassius V.
L. Vatron(ius) Pr. 2902
C. Velius Æd. 2964
Q. Vettius T. (f) Pulcher IIvir. 3012
C. Vibius Æd. 2966
Q. Vibuleius L.f. IIvir. 3013
Cn. Voesius Cn. f. Aper. Q. Æd. IIvir. 3014
C. Voluntilius Q.f. Varus IIvir. 3020
— — — IIvir. IIvir. Quinqu. 4091, 8
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE MUNICIPAL OFFICERS OF PRÆNESTE.
BEFORE PRÆNESTE WAS A COLONY.
DATE IIVIRI AEDILES QUÆSTORES.
B.C.
9 Prænestinus prætor.
5 M. Anicius.
{ { { M. Anicius L.f. Baaso {M. Mersieius C.f.
{ { { { { {C. Samius {C. Feidenatius {C. Tampius C.f. Tarenteinus {C. Vatronius {L. Orcevius
2{ 8{ {C. Saufeius C.f. Pontanus {M. Saufeius L.f.
C. Magulnius C.f. Scato
e{ r{ {L. Tondeius L.f.M.n. {M. Magulnius Sp. f.M.n. Scato
o{ f{ {L. Fabricius C.f. Varrus {M. Saufe(ius) Canies
e{ B{ {M. Saufeius M.f. Rutilus {C. Saufeius C.f. Flacus
{ { {C. Magulnius C.f. Scato Maxsumus {C. Saufeius C.f. Flaccus
{ {L. Saufeius C.f. Flaccus
3 or 2 (?) {C. Orcivius} Praestores { } isdem {—Saufeius} Duumviri.
A Senate is mentioned in the inscriptions C.I.L., XIV, 2990, 3000, 3001, 3002.
AFTER PRÆNESTE WAS A COLONY.
DATE IIVIRI AEDILES QUÆSTORES.
B.C.
80-75 (?) ... Sabinus
2d year {... nus. { [... ter. {— (Corn)elius Rufus — (?)cius Valer(ianus)
80-50
1st year — (Cornelius) Dolabella — Rotanius. {M. Samiarius {Q. (Fl)avius.
2d year {C. Messienus. {P. Cornelius {Sex. Cæsius. {L. Nassius. {Q. Caleius {C. Sertorius.
3d year {C. Salvius {T. Lucretius {L. Curtius {C. Vibius {— Statiolenus. {C. Cassius
4th year M. Petronius, Quinqu. Q. Arrasidius. T. Aponius
75-50
1st year . {M. Decumius. {L. Ferlidius.
2d year {C. Paccius. {C. Ninn(ius). {C. Albinius. {Sex. Po.. {Sex. Capivas. {C. M...
? {C. Cæsius M.f.} Duoviri {C. Flavius L.f. } Quinqu.
? {Q. Vettius T. (f.) Pulcher. {— Tedusius T. (f.)
? {Q. Vibuleius L.f. {L. Statius Sal. f.
A.D.
12 M. Atellius.
13 C. Raecius. {— (—) lius. {C. Velius. {— Accius ...us. {M. Valerius.
14 {Germanicus Cæsar Quinqu. {Drusus Cæsar {M. Cominius Bassus Pr. {M. Petronius Rufus {C. Dindius. {Cn. Egnatius. {C. Iuc... Rufus {C. Thorenas
15 {Cn. Pom(pei)us. {— Curtius?) Sura. {M. Ræcius. {— Cordus.
16 {L. Petisius Potens {C. Salvius. {C. Dindius. {T. Livius. {L. Aiacius. {C. Arrius.
? — Vassius
? — Punicus. — Manilei.
? ... Minus Quinq. — (?) rius.
? (Se)x Truttidi(us). C. Cæcilius.
? (M.) Petronius Rufus. — (I)nstacilius.
1st year — Sedatus.
2d year ... lus — (Fl)avius Musca.
3d year {Nero et Drusus } Duoviri {Germanici f. } Quinq. {.... } Præf. {... Sedatus. }
101 {Ti. Claudius Attalus Mamilianus. {T. Sabidius Sabinus.
100-256 {P. Annius Septimus. {Sex. Geganius Fimbria.
P. Aquilius Gallus.
250 {— Egnatius. {P. Scrib(onius). {T. Long... Prisc(us). {C. Treb... Planta. —Mecanius. {Q. Mestrius. {C. Tappurius. M. Tere ... Cl... C. Voluntilius Q.f. Varus
— Macrin(ius) Nerian(us).
M'. Later... L. Mag(ulnius) M.f.
{(M). Antonius Subarus. {T. Diadumenius. M. Naut(ius).
Decuriones populusque colonia Prænestin., C.I.L., XIV, 2898, 2899; decuriones populusque 2970, 2971, Not. d. Scavi 1894, P. 96; other mention of decuriones 2980, 2987, 2992, 3013; ordo populusque 2914; decretum ordinis 2991; curiales, in the late empire, Symmachus, Rel., 28, 4.
NOTES:
[1]
Strabo V, 3, II.
[2]
We know that in 380 B.C. Præneste had eight towns under her jurisdiction, and that they must have been relatively near by. Livy VI, 29, 6: octo præterea oppida erant sub dicione Prænestinorum. Festus, p. 550 (de Ponor): T. Quintius Dictator cum per novem dies totidem urbes et decimam Præneste cepisset, and the story of the golden crown offered to Jupiter as the result of this rapid campaign, and the statue which was carried away from Præneste (Livy VI, 29, 8), all show that the domain of Præneste was both of extent and of consequence.
[3]
Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 475.
[4]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 11, n. 74.
[5]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 227 ff.; Marucchi, Guida Archeologica, p. 14; Nibby, Analisi, p. 483; Volpi, Latium vetus de Præn., chap 2; Tomassetti, Delia Campagna Romana, p. 167.
[6]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 11.
[7]
Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 484 from Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, III, i, p. 301.
[8]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 402.
[9]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 277, n. 36, from Epist., 474: Bonifacius VIII concedit Episcopo Civitatis Papalis Locum, ubi fuerunt olim Civitas Prænestina, eiusque Castrum, quod dicebatur Mons, et Rocca; ac etiam Civitas Papalis postmodum destructa, cum Territorio et Turri de Marmoribus, et Valle Gloriæ; nec non Castrum Novum Tiburtinum 2 Id. April. an. VI; Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 136; Civitas prædicta cum Rocca, et Monte, cum Territorio ipsius posita est in districtu Urbis in contrata, quæ dicitur Romangia.
[10]
Ashby, Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. I, p. 213, and Maps IV and VI. Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 19, n. 34.
[11]
Livy VIII, 12, 7: Pedanos tuebatur Tiburs, Prænestinus Veliternusque populus, etc. Livy VII, 12, 8: quod Gallos mox Præneste venisse atque inde circa Pedum consedisse auditum est. Livy II, 39, 4; Dion. Hal. VIII, 19, 3; Horace, Epist, I, 4, 2. Cluverius, p. 966, thinks Pedum is Gallicano, as does Nibby with very good reason, Analisi, II, p. 552, and Tomassetti, Delia Campagna Romana, p. 176. Ashby, Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna in Papers of the British School at Rome, I, p. 205, thinks Pedum can not be located with certainty, but rather inclines to Zagarolo.
[12]
There are some good ancient tufa quarries too on the southern slope of Colle S. Rocco, to which a branch road from Præneste ran. Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 104.
[13]
C.I.L., XIV, 2940 found at S. Pastore.
[14]
Now the Maremmana inferiore, Ashby, Classical Topog. of the Roman Campagna, I, pp. 205, 267.
[15]
Ashby, Classical Topog. of the Roman Campagna, I, p. 206, finds on the Colle del Pero an ampitheatre and a great many remains of imperial times, but considers it the probable site of an early village.
[16]
Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 120, wishes to connect Marcigliano and Ceciliano with the gentes Marcia and Cæcilia, but it is impossible to do more than guess, and the rather few names of these gentes at Præneste make the guess improbable. It is also impossible to locate regio Cæsariana mentioned as a possession of Præneste by Symmachus, Rel., XXVIII, 4, in the year 384 A.D. Eutropius II, 12 gets some confirmation of his argument from the modern name Campo di Pirro which still clings to the ridge west of Præneste.
[17]
The author himself saw all the excavations here along the road during the year 1907, of which there is a full account in the Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 4 (1907), p. 19. Excavations began on these tombs in 1738, and have been carried on spasmodically ever since. There were excavations again in 1825 (Marucchi, Guida Archeologica, p. 21), but it was in 1855 that the more extensive excavations were made which caused so much stir among archæologists (Marucchi, l.c., p. 21, notes 1-7). For the excavations see Bull, dell'Instituto. 1858, p. 93 ff., 1866, p. 133, 1869, p. 164, 1870, p. 97, 1883, p. 12; Not. d. Scavi, 2 (1877-78), pp. 101, 157, 390, 10 (1882-83), p. 584; Revue Arch., XXXV (1878), p. 234; Plan of necropolis in Garucci, Dissertazioni Arch., plate XII. Again in 1862 there were excavations of importance made in the Vigna Velluti, to the right of the road to Marcigliano. It was thought that the exact boundaries of the necropolis on the north and south had been found because of the little columns of peperino 41 inches high by 8-8/10 inches square, which were in situ, and seemed to serve no other purpose than that of sepulchral cippi or boundary stones. Garucci, Dissertazioni Arch., I, p. 148; Archæologia, 41 (1867), p. 190.
[18]
C.I.L., XIV, 2987.
[19]
The papal documents read sometimes in Latin, territorium Prænestinum or Civitas Prænestina, but often the town itself is mentioned in its changing nomenclature, Pellestrina, Pinestrino, Penestre (Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. II; Nibby, Analisi, II, pp. 475, 483).
[20]
There is nothing to show that Poli ever belonged in any way to ancient Præneste.
[21]
Rather a variety of cappellaccio, according to my own observations. See Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 5 (1897), p. 259.
[22]
The temple in Cave is of the same tufa (Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 104). The quarries down toward Gallicano supplied tufa of the same texture, but the quarries are too small to have supplied much. But this tufa from the ridge back of the town seems not to have been used in Gallicano to any great extent, for the tufa there is of a different kind and comes from the different cuts in the ridges on either side of the town, and from a quarry just west of the town across the valley.
[23]
Plautus, Truc., 691 (see [Probus] de ultimis syllabis, p. 263, 8 (Keil); C.I.L., XIV, p. 288, n. 9); Plautus, Trin., 609 (Festus, p. 544 (de Ponor), Mommsen, Abhand. d. berl. Akad., 1864, p. 70); Quintilian I, 5, 56; Festus under "tongere," p. 539 (de Ponor), and under "nefrendes," p. 161 (de Ponor).
[24]
Cave has been attached rather more to Genazzano during Papal rule than to Præneste, and it belongs to the electoral college of Subiaco, Tomassetti, Delia Campagna Romana, p. 182.
[25]
I heard everywhere bitter and slighting remarks in Præneste about Cave, and much fun made of the Cave dialect. When there are church festivals at Cave the women usually go, but the men not often, for the facts bear out the tradition that there is usually a fight. Tomassetti, Della Campagna Romana, p. 183, remarks upon the differences in dialect.
[26]
Mommsen, Bull. dell'Instituto, 1862, p. 38, thinks that the civilization in Præneste was far ahead of that of the other Latin cities.
[27]
It is to be noted that this Marcigliana road was not to tap the trade route along the Volscian side of the Liris-Trerus valley, which ran under Artena and through Valmontone. It did not reach so far. It was meant rather as a threat to that route.
[28]
Whether these towns are Pedum or Bola, Scaptia, and Querquetula is not a question here at all.
[29]
Gatti, in Not. d. Scavi, 1903, p. 576, in connection with the Arlenius inscription, found on the site of the new Forum below Præneste in 1903, which mentions Ad Duas Casas as confinium territorio Prænestinæ, thought that it was possible to identify this place with a fundus and possessio Duas Casas below Tibur under Monte Gennaro, and thus to extend the domain of Præneste that far, but as Huelsen saw (Mitth. des k.d. Arch, Inst., 19 (1904), p. 150), that is manifestly impossible, doubly so from the modern analogies which he quotes (l.c., note 2) from the Dizionario dei Comuni d'Italia.
[30]
It might be objected that because Pietro Colonna in 1092 A.D. assaulted and took Cave as his first step in his revolt against Clement III (Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 240), that Cave was at that time a dependency of Præneste. But it has been shown that Præneste's diocesan territory expanded and shrunk very much at different times, and that in general the extent of a diocese, when larger, depends on principles which ancient topography will not allow. And too it can as well be said that Pietro Colonna was paying up ancient grudge against Cave, and certainly also he realized that of all the towns near Præneste, Cave was strategically the best from which to attack, and this most certainly shows that in ancient times such natural barriers between the two must have been practically impassable.
[31]
To be more exact, on the least precipitous side, that which looks directly toward Rocca di Cave.
[32]
To anticipate any one saying that this scarping is modern, and was done to make the approach to the Via del Colonnaro, I will say that the modern part of it is insignificant, and can be most plainly distinguished, and further, that the two pieces of opus incertum which are there, as shown also in Fernique's map, Étude sur Préneste, opp. p. 222, are Sullan in date.
[33]
Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, map facing p. 222. His book is on the whole the best one on Præneste but leaves much to be desired when the question is one of topography or epigraphy (see Dessau's comment C.I.L., XIV, p. 294, n. 4). Even Marucchi, Guida Arch., p. 68, n. 1, took the word of a citizen of the town who wrote him that parts of a wall of opus quadratum could be traced along the Via dello Spregato, and so fell into error. Blondel, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'école française de Rome, 1882, plate 5, shows a little of this polygonal cyclopean construction.
[34]
Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 511, wrote his note on the wall beyond San Francesco from memory. He says that one follows the monastery wall down, and then comes to a big reservoir. The monastery wall has only a few stones from the cyclopean wall in it, and they are set in among rubble, and are plainly a few pieces from the upper wall above the gate. The reservoir which he reaches is half a mile away across a depression several hundred feet deep, and there is no possible connection, for the reservoir is over on Colle San Martino, not on the hill of Præneste at all.
[35]
The postern or portella is just what one would expect near a corner of the wall, as a less important and smaller entrance to a terrace less wide than the main one above it, which had its big gates at west and east, the Porta San Francesco and the Porta del Cappuccini. The Porta San Francesco is proved old and famous by C.I.L., XIV, 3343, where supra viam is all that is necessary to designate the road from this gate. Again an antica via in Via dello Spregato (Not. d. Scavi, I (1885), p. 139, shows that inside this oldest cross wall there was a road part way along it, at least.)
[36]
The Cyclopean wall inside the Porta del Sole was laid bare in 1890, Not. d. Scavi, 7-8 (1890), p. 38.
[37]
Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 501: "A destra della contrada degli Arconi due cippi simili a quelli del pomerio di Roma furono scoperti nel risarcire la strada Tanno 1824."
[38]
Some of the paving stones are still to be seen in situ under the modern wall which runs up from the brick reservoir of imperial date. This wall was to sustain the refuse which was thrown over the city wall. The place between the walls is now a garden.
[39]
I have examined with care every foot of the present western wall on which the houses are built, from the outside, and from the cellars inside, and find no traces of antiquity, except the few stones here and there set in late rubble in such a way that it is sure they have been simply picked up somewhere and brought there for use as extra material.
[40]
C.I.L., XIV., 3029; PED XXC. Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 497, mentions an inscription, certainly this one, but reads it PED XXX, and says it is in letters of the most ancient form. This is not true. The letters are not so very ancient. I was led by his note to examine every stone in the cyclopean wall around the whole city, but no further inscription was forthcoming.
[41]
This stretch of opus incertum is Sullan reconstruction when he made a western approach to the Porta Triumphalis to correspond to the one at the east on the arches. This piece of wall is strongly made, and is exactly like a piece of opus incertum wall near the Stabian gate at Pompeii, which Professor Man told me was undoubtedly Sullan.
[42]
Marucchi, Guida Arch., p. 19, who is usually a good authority on Præneste, thinks that all the opus quadratum walls were built as surrounding walls for the great sanctuary of Fortuna. But the facts will not bear out his theory. Ovid, Fasti VI, 61-62, III, 92; Preller, Roem. Myth., 2, 191, are interesting in this connection.
[43]
I could get no exact measurements of the reservoir, for the water was about knee deep, and I was unable to persuade my guides to venture far from the entrance, but I carried a candle to the walls on both sides and one end.
[44]
At some places the concrete was poured in behind the wall between it and the shelving cliff, at other places it is built up like the wall. The marks of the stones in the concrete can be seen most plainly near Porta S. Martino (Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 104, also mentions it). The same thing is true at various places all along the wall.
[45]
Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 107, has exact measurements of the walls.
[46]
Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 108, from Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 43, considers as a possibility a road from each side, but he is trying only to make an approach to the temple with corresponding parts, and besides he advances no proofs.
[47]
There seems to have been only a postern in the ancient wall inside the present Porta del Sole.
[48]
Many feet of this ancient pavement were laid bare during the excavations in April, 1907, which I myself saw, and illustrations of which are published in the Notizie d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 4 (1907), pp. 136, 292.
[49]
Marucchi, Guida Arch., p. 57 ff. for argument and proof, beginning with Varro, de I. 1. VI, 4: ut Præneste incisum in solario vidi.
[50]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 43.
[51]
The continuation of the slope is the same, and the method of making roads in the serpentine style to reach a gate leading to the important part of town, is not only the common method employed for hill towns, but the natural and necessary one, not only in ancient times, but still today.
[52]
Through the courtesy of the Mayor and the Municipal Secretary of Palestrina, I had the only exact map in existence of modern Palestrina to work with. This map was getting in bad condition, so I traced it, and had photographic copies made of it, and presented a mounted copy to the city. This map shows these wall alignments and the changes in direction of the cyclopean wall on the east of the city. Fernique seems to have drawn off-hand from this map, so his plan (l.c., facing p. 222) is rather carelessly done.
I shall publish the map in completeness within a few years, in a place where the epochs of the growth of the city can be shown in colors.
[53]
I called the attention of Dr. Esther B. Van Deman, Carnegie Fellow in the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, who came out to Palestrina, and kindly went over many of my results with me, to this piece of wall, and she agreed with me that it had been an approach to the terrace in ancient times.
[54]
C.I.L., XIV, 2850. The inscription was on a small cippus, and was seen in a great many different places, so no argument can be drawn from its provenience.
[55]
This may have been the base for the statue of M. Anicius, so famous after his defense at Casilinum. Livy XXIII, 19, 17-18.
It might not be a bad guess to say that the Porta Triumphalis first got its name when M. Anicius returned with his proud cohort to Præneste.
[56]
Not. d. Scavi, 7-8 (1890), p. 38. This platform is a little over three feet above the level of the modern piazza, but is now hidden under the steps to the Corso. But the piece of restraining wall is still to be seen in the piazza, and it is of the same style of opus quadratum construction as the walls below the Barberini gardens.
[57]
Strabo V, 3, II (238, 10): ερυμνη μεν ουν εκατερα, πολυ δ'ερυμνοτεραερυμνοτε Πραινεστος .
[58]
Plutarch, Sulla, XXVIII: Μαριος δε φευγων εις Πραινεστον ηδη τας πυλας ευρε κεκλειμενας .
[59]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 282; Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 491.
[60]
Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, pp. 180-181. The walls were built in muro merlato. It is not certain where the Murozzo and Truglio were. Petrini guesses at their site on grounds of derivation.
[61]
Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 248.
[62]
Also called Porta S. Giacomo, or dell'Ospedale.
[63]
Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 252.
[64]
Closed seemingly in Sullan times.
[65]
The rude corbeling of one side of the gate is still very plainly to be seen. The gate is filled with mediæval stone work.
[66]
There is a wooden gate here, which can be opened, but it only leads out upon a garden and a dumping ground above a cliff.
[67]
This was the only means of getting out to the little stream that ran down the depression shown in plate III, and over to the hill of S. Martino, which with the slope east of the city could properly be called Monte Glicestro outside the walls.
[68]
This gate is now a mediæval tower gate, but the stones of the cyclopean wall are still in situ, and show three stones, with straight edge, one above the other, on each side of the present gate, and the wall here has a jog of twenty feet. The road out this gate could not be seen except from down on the Cave road, and it gave an outlet to some springs under the citadel, and to the valley back toward Capranica.
[69]
This last stretch of the wall did not follow the present wall, but ran up directly back of S. Maria del'Carmine, and was on the east side of the rough and steep track which borders the eastern side of the present Franciscan monastery.
[70]
The several courses of opus quadratum which were found a few years ago, and are at the east entrance to the Corso built into the wall of a lumber store, are continued also inside that wall, and seem to be the remains of a gate tower.
[71]
See page 28. This gap in the wall is still another proof for the gate, for it was down the road, which was paved, that the water ran after rainstorms, if at no other time.
[72]
This gate is very prettily named by Cecconi, Spiegazione de Numeri, Map facing page 1: l'antica Porta di San Martino chiusa.
[73]
Since the excavations of the past two years, nothing has been written to show what relations a few newly discovered pieces of ancient paved roads have to the city and to its gates, and for that reason it becomes necessary to say something about a matter only tolerably treated by the writers on Præneste up to their dates of publication.
[74]
Ashby, Classical Topog. of the Roman Campagna, in Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 1, Map VI.
[75]
This road is proved as ancient by the discovery in 1906 (Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 3 (1906), p. 317) of a small paved road, a diverticolo, in front of the church of S. Lucia, which is a direct continuation of the Via degli Arconi. This diverticolo ran out the Colle dell'Oro. See Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 20, n. 37; Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 122; Marucchi, Guida Archeologica, p. 122.
[76]
This road to Marcigliano had nothing to do with either the Prænestina or the Labicana. Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 5 (1897), p. 255; 2 (1877-78), p. 157; Bull. dell'Inst., 1876, pp. 117 ff. make the via S. Maria the eastern boundary of the necropolis.
[77]
Not. d. Scavi, 11 (1903), pp. 23-25.
[78]
Probably the store room of some little shop which sold the exvotos. Bull. dell'Inst., 1883, p. 28.
[79]
Bull. dell'Inst., 1871, p. 72 for tombs found on both sides the modern road to Rome, the exact provenience being the vocabolo S. Rocco, on the Frattini place; Stevenson, Bull. dell'Inst., 1883, pp. 12 ff., for tombs in the vigna Soleti along the diverticolo from the Via Prænestina. Also at Bocce Rodi, one mile west of the city, tombs of the imperial age were found (Not. d. Scavi, 10 (1882-83), p. 600); C.I.L., XIV, 2952, 2991, 4091, 65; Bull. dell'Inst., 1870, p. 98.
[80]
The roads are the present Via Prænestina toward Gallicano, and the Via Prænestina Nuova which crosses the Casilina to join the Labicana. This great deposit of terra cottas was found in 1877 at a depth of twelve feet below the present ground level. Fernique, Revue Arch., XXXV (1878), p. 240, notes 1, 2, and 3, comes to the best conclusions on this find. It was a factory or kiln for the terra cottas, and there was a store in connection at or near the junction of the roads. Other stores of deposits of the same kinds of objects have been found (see Fernique, l.c.) at Falterona, Gabii, Capua, Vicarello; also at the temple of Diana Nemorensis (Bull. dell'Inst., 1871, p. 71), and outside Porta S. Lorenzo at Rome (Bull. Com., 1876, p. 225), and near Civita Castellana (Bull. dell'Inst., 1880, p. 108).
[81]
Strabo V, 3, 11 (C. 239); ... διωρυξι κρυπταις--πανταχοτεν μεχρι των πεδιων ταις μεν υδρειας χαριν κτλ. ; Vell. Paterc. II, 27, 4.
[82]
As one goes out the Porta S. Francesco and across the depression by the road which winds round to the citadel, he finds both above and below the road several reservoirs hollowed out in the rock of the mountain, which were filled by the rain water which fell above them and ran into them.
[83]
Cola di Rienzo did this (see note 59), and so discovered the method by which the Prænestines communicated with the outside world. Sulla fixed his camp on le Tende, west of the city, that he might have a safe position himself, and yet threaten Præneste from the rear, from over Colle S. Martino, as well as by an attack in front.
[84]
C.I.L., XIV, 3013, 3014 add., 2978, 2979, 3015.
[85]
Nibby, Analisi, p. 510. It could be seen in 1907, but not so very clearly.
[86]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 79, thinks this reservoir was for storing water for a circus in the valley below. This is most improbable. It was a reservoir to supply a villa which covered the lower part of the slope, as the different remains certainly show.
[87]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 301, n. 30, 31, from Annali int. rerum Italic, scriptorum, Vol. 24, p. 1115; Vol. 21, p. 146, and from Ciacconi, in Eugen. IV, Platina et Blondus.
[88]
The mediæval Italian towns everywhere made use of the Roman aqueducts, and we have from the middle ages practically nothing but repairs on aqueducts, hardly any aqueducts themselves.
[89]
Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 338, speaks of this aqueduct as "quel mirabile antico cuniculo."
[90]
The springs Acqua Maggiore, Acqua della Nocchia, Acqua del Sambuco, Acqua Ritrovata, Acqua della Formetta (Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 286).
[91]
Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 96 ff., p. 122 ff.; Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 501 ff.; Marucchi, Guida Arch., p. 45.
[92]
Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 503, the sanest of all the writers on Præneste, even made some ruins which he found under the Fiumara house on the east side of town, into the remains of a reservoir to correspond to the one in the Barberini gardens. The structures according to material differ in date about two hundred years.
[93]
C.I.L., XIV, 2911, was found near this reservoir, and Nibby from this, and a likeness to the construction of the Castra Prætoria at Rome, dates it so (Analisi, p. 503).
[94]
This is the opinion of Dr. Esther B. Van Deman of the American School in Rome.
[95]
See above, page 29.
[96]
There is still another small reservoir on the next terrace higher, the so-called Borgo terrace, but I was not able to examine it satisfactorily enough to come to any conclusion. Palestrina is a labyrinth of underground passages. I have explored dozens of them, but the most of them are pockets, and were store rooms or hiding places belonging to the houses under which they were.
[97]
This is shown by the network of drains all through the plain below the city. Strabo V, 3, 11 (C. 239); Vell. Paterc. II, 27, 4; Valer. Max. VI, 8, 2; Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 77; Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 123.
[98]
Cicero, de Div., II, 41, 85.
[99]
There are many references to the temple. Suetonius, Dom., 15, Tib., 63; Ælius Lampridius, Life of Alex. Severus, XVIII, 4, 6 (Peter); Strabo V, 3, 11 (238, 10); Cicero, de Div., II, 41, 86-87; Plutarch, de fort. Rom. (Moralia, p. 396, 37); C.I.L., I, p. 267; Preller, Roem. Myth. II, 192, 3 (pp. 561-563); Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 275, n. 29, p. 278, n. 37.
[100]
"La città attuale è intieramente fondata sulle rovine del magnifico tempio della Fortuna," Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 494. "E niuno ignora che il colossale edificio era addossato al declivio del monte prenestino e occupava quasi tutta l'area ove oggi si estende la moderna città," Marucchi, Bull. Com., 32 (1904), p. 233.
[101]
This upper temple is the one mentioned in a manifesto of 1299 A.D. made by the Colonna against the Caetani (Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 275, n. 29). It is an order of Pope Boniface VIII, ex Codic. Archiv. Castri S. Angeli signat, n. 47, pag. 49: Item, dicunt civitatem Prenestinam cum palatiis nobilissimis et cum templo magno et sollempni ... et cum muris antiquis opere sarracenico factis de lapidibus quadris et magnis totaliter suppositam fuisse exterminio et ruine per ipsum Dominum Bonifacium, etc. Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 419 ff.
Also as to the shape of the upper temple and the number of steps to it, we have certain facts from a document from the archives of the Vatican, published in Petrini, l.c., p. 429; palacii nobilissimi et antiquissimi scalæ de nobilissimo marmore per quas etiam equitando ascendi poterat in Palacium ... quæquidem scalæ erant ultra centum numero. Palacium autem Cæsaris ædificatum ad modum unius C propter primam litteram nominis sui, et templum palatio inhærens, opere sumptuosissimo et nobilissimo ædificatum ad modum s. Mariæ rotundæ de urbe.
[102]
Delbrueck, Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, under Das Heiligtum der Fortuna in Præneste, p. 47 ff.
[103]
Cicero, De Div., II, 41, 85.
[104]
Marucchi wishes to make the east cave the older and the real cave of the sortes. However, he does not know the two best arguments for his case; Lampridius, Alex. Severus, XVIII, 4, 6 (Peter); Huic sors in templo Prænestinæ talis extitit, and Suetonius Tib., 63: non repperisset in arca nisi relata rursus ad templum. Topography is all with the cave on the west, Marucchi is wrong, although he makes a very good case (Bull. Com., 32 (1904), p. 239).
[105]
Cicero, de Div., II, 41, 85: is est hodie locus sæptus religiose propter Iovis pueri, qui lactens cum lunone Fortunæ in gremio sedens, ... eodemque tempore in eo loco, ubi Fortunæ nunc est ædes, etc.
[106]
C.I.L., XIV, 2867: ...ut Triviam in Iunonario, ut in pronao ædis statuam, etc., and Livy, XXIII, 19, 18 of 216 B.C.: Idem titulus (a laudatory inscription to M. Anicius) tribus signis in æde Fortunæ positis fuit subiectus.
[107]
This question is not topographical and can not be discussed at any length here. But the best solution seems to be that Fortuna as child of Jupiter (Diovo filea primocenia, C.I.L., XIV., 2863, Iovis puer primigenia, C.I.L., XIV, 2862, 2863) was confounded with her name Iovis puer, and another cult tradition which made Fortuna mother of two children. As the Roman deity Jupiter grew in importance, the tendency was for the Romans to misunderstand Iovis puer as the boy god Jupiter, as they really did (Wissowa, Relig. u. Kult. d. Roemer, p. 209), and the pride of the Prænestines then made Fortuna the mother of Jupiter and Juno, and considered Primigenia to mean "first born," not "first born of Jupiter."
[108]
The establishment of the present Cathedral of S. Agapito as the basilica of ancient Præneste is due to the acumen of Marucchi, who has made it certain in his writings on the subject. Bull. dell' Inst., 1881, p. 248 ff., 1882, p. 244 ff.; Guida Archeologica, 1885, p. 47 ff.; Bull. Com., 1895, p. 26 ff., 1904, p. 233 ff.
[109]
There are 16 descriptions and plans of the temple. A full bibliography of them is in Delbrueck, Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, pp. 51-52.
[110]
Marucchi. Bull. Com., XXXII (1904), p. 240. I also saw it very plainly by the light of a torch on a pole, when studying the temple in April, 1907.
[111]
See also Revue Arch., XXXIX (1901), p. 469, n. 188.
[112]
C.I.L, XIV, 2864.
[113]
See Henzen, Bull. dell'Inst., 1859, p. 23, from Paulus ex Festo under manceps. This claims that probably the manceps was in charge of the maintenance (manutenzione) of the temple, and the cellarii of the cella proper, because æditui, of whom we have no mention, are the proper custodians of the entire temple, precinct and all.
[114]
C.I.L., XIV, 3007. See Jordan, Topog. d. Stadt Rom, I, 2, p. 365, n. 73.
[115]
See Delbrueck, l.c., p. 62.
[116]
C.I.L., XIV, 2922; also on bricks, Ann. dell'Inst., 1855, p. 86—C.I.L., XIV, 4091, 9.
[117]
C.I.L., XIV, 2980; C. Cæsius M.f.C. Flavius L.f. Duovir Quinq. ædem et portic d.d. fac. coer. eidemq. prob.
[118]
C.I.L., XIV, 2995; ...summa porticum mar[moribus]—albario adiecta. Dessau says on "some public building," which is too easy. See Vitruvius, De Architectura, 7, 2; Pliny, XXXVI, 177.
[119]
Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 430. See also Juvenal XIV, 88; Friedlænder, Sittengeschichte Roms, II, 107, 10.
[120]
Delbrueck, l.c., p. 62, with illustration.
[121]
Although Suaresius (Thesaurus Antiq. Italiæ, VIII, Part IV, plate, p. 38) uses some worthless inscriptions in making such a point, his idea is good. Perhaps the lettered blocks drawn for the inquirer from the arca were arranged here on this slab. Another possibility is that it was a place of record of noted cures or answers of the Goddess. Such inscriptions are well known from the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, Cavvadias, Εφημ Αρχ. , 1883, p. 1975; Michel, Recueil d'insc. grec., 1069 ff.
[122]
Mommsen, Unterital. Dialekte, pp. 320, 324; Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, 3, p. 271, n. 8. See Marucchi, Bull. Com., 32 (1904), p. 10.
[123]
Delbrueck, l.c., pp. 50, 59, does prove that there is no reason why λιθοστρωτον can not mean a mosaic floor of colored marble, but he forgets comparisons with the date of other Roman mosaics, and that Pliny would not have missed the opportunity of describing such wonderful mosaics as the two in Præneste. Marucchi, Bull. Com., 32 (1904), p. 251 goes far afield in his Isityches (Isis-Fortuna) quest, and gets no results.
The latest discussion of the subject was a joint debate held under the auspices of the Associazione Archeologica di Palestrina between Professors Marucchi and Vaglieri, which is published thus far only in the daily papers, the Corriere D'Italia of Oct. 2, 1907, and taken up in an article by Attilio Rossi in La Tribuna of October 11, 1907. Vaglieri, in the newspaper article quoted, holds that the mosaic is the work of Claudius Ælianus, who lived in the latter half of the second century A.D. Marucchi, in the same place, says that in the porticoes of the upper temple are traces of mosaic which he attributes to the gift of Sulla mentioned by Pliny XXXVI, 189, but in urging this he must shift delubrum Fortunæ to the Cortina terrace and that is entirely impossible.
I may say that a careful study and a long paper on the Barberini mosaic has just been written by Cav. Francesco Coltellacci, Segretario Comunale di Palestrina, which I had the privilege of reading in manuscript.
[124]
For the many opinions as to the subject of the mosaic, see Marucchi, Guida Arch., p. 75.
[125]
This has been supposed to be a villa of Hadrian's because the Braschi Antinoüs was found here, and because we find bricks in the walls with stamps which date from Hadrian's time. But the best proof that this building, which is under the modern cemetery, is Hadrian's, is that the measurements of the walls are the same as those in his villa below Tibur. Dr. Van Deman, of the American School in Rome, spent two days with me in going over this building and comparing measurements with the villa at Tibur. I shall publish a plan of the villa in the near future. See Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 120, for a meagre description of the villa.
[126]
Delbrueck, l.c., p. 58, n. 1.
[127]
The ærarium is under the temple and at the same time cut back into the solid rock of the cliff just across the road at one corner of the basilica. An ærarium at Rome under the temple of Saturn is always mentioned in this connection. There is also a chamber of the same sort at the upper end of the shops in front of the basilica Æmilia in the Roman Forum, to which Boni has given the name "carcere," but Huelsen thinks rightly that it is a treasury of some sort. There is a like treasury in Pompeii back of the market, so Mau thinks, Vaglieri in Corriere D'Italia, Oct 2, 1907.
[128]
See note 106.
[129]
C.I.L., XIV, 2875. This dedication of "coques atriensis" probably belongs to the upper temple.
[130]
Alle Quadrelle casale verso Cave e Valmontone, Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 70; Chaupy, Maison d'Horace, II, p. 317; Petrini, Memorie Prenestine, p. 326, n. 9.
[131]
The martyr suffered death contra civitatem prænestinam ubi sunt duæ viæ, Marucchi, Guida Arch., p. 144, n. 3, from Martirol. Adonis, 18 Aug. Cod. Vat. Regin., n. 511 (11th cent. A.D.).
[132]
C.I.L., XIV, 3014; Bull. munic., 2 (1874), p. 86; C.I.L., VI, p. 885, n. 1744a; Tac. Ann., XV, 46 (65 A.D.); Friedlænder, Sittengeschichte Roms, II, p. 377; Cicero, pro Plancio, XXVI, 63; Epist. ad Att., XII, 2, 2; Cassiodorus, Variæ, VI, 15.
[133]
A black and white mosaic of late pattern was found there during the excavations. Not. d. Scavi, 1877, p. 328; Fernique, Revue Arch., XXXV (1878), p. 233; Fronto, p. 157 (Naber).
[134]
On Le Colonelle toward S. Pastore. Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 60.
[135]
I think this better than the supposition that these libraries were put up by a man skilled in public and private law. See C.I.L, XIV, 2916.