PAPERS OF THE ROYAL NETHERLANDS INSTITUTE IN ROME volume 69 - 2021 THE STATE OF THE SAMNITES Edited by Tesse D. Stek Edizioni Quasar Editorial Board Dr. Tesse D. Stek Dr. Maria Urban Dr. Matthijs Jonker Correspondence regarding editorial material and contributions should be addressed to: Papers of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) Via Omero 10/12 - 00197 Roma www.knir.it Subscription and order of single volumes: Edizioni Quasar via Ajaccio 41-43, 00198 Roma tel. 0685358444, fax 0685833591 email: info@edizioniquasar.it Papers of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome Cover: foto T.D. Stek, paesaggio in provincia di Isernia. © Roma 2021, Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon s.r.l. ISBN 978-88-5491-202-1 Finito di stampare nel mese di dicembre 2021 presso Arti Grafiche CDC s.r.l. – Città di Castello (PG) PAPERS OF THE ROYAL NETHERLANDS INSTITUTE IN ROME -VOLUME 69 - 2021 THE STATE OF THE SAMNITES Edited by Tesse D. Stek Edizioni Quasar Contents Acknowledgements 11 Map of Samnium with indication of the sites mentioned in the volume 12 Introduction The ‘State’ of the Samnites and the ‘state’ of research in Samnium Tesse D. Stek 15 Part I. THE SAMNITE STATE? THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN SAMNIUM Sull’organizzazione statuale degli Italici: percezioni antiche ed evidenze epigrafiche Loredana Cappelletti 23 An Oscan public sphere? With insights from Lucania Elena Isayev 35 Il foedus romano-frentano del 304 a.C. nel contesto dell’Adriatico della fine del IV secolo a.C. Federico Russo 53 La municipalizzazione tardiva del Sannio Cesare Letta 65 Part II. NEW LIGHT ON THE FUNERARY, DOMESTIC AND PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES OF SAMNIUM Al margine dell’invisibile. Individui e società nel mondo sannitico Angela di Niro 79 Armi nelle tombe: che fine hanno fatto i guerrieri? Marlene Suano 91 Il sito di Pesco Morelli a Cercemaggiore (CB): riesame dei dati di scavo e considerazioni generali sul rapporto spazio pubblico e spazio privato nel mondo sannitico Isabella Muccilli, Angela di Niro, Diletta Colombo La fornace ellenistica di Castelpetroso Francesco Giancola 103 119 Part III. HIGHLAND ARCHAEOLOGY IN SAMNIUM I centri fortificati in Abruzzo: definizione, funzione, datazione Stéphane Bourdin 127 A non-invasive archaeological approach to the study of mountain top settlements: first results from the hillfort of Montagna di Gildone in ancient Samnium (CB, Molise) Tesse D. Stek, Arthur Hamel, Jesús García Sánchez 141 Il sito sannitico-romano in loc. Capo di Campo (Castello del Matese, CE) e l’occupazione antica del massiccio matesino Gianluca Soricelli 151 Part IV. CULTS AND CULT PLACES IN RURAL AND URBAN LANDSCAPES Il santuario italico di Trivento Gerardo Fratianni 173 I Romani nella media valle del Volturno: il santuario del Monte San Nicola a Pietravairano (CE) Gianluca Tagliamonte, Luciano Maria Rendina, Dario Panariti, Luigi Cinque 191 L’iscrizione osca in alfabeto latino rinvenuta a Larino (CB): il culto di Mamers documentato Timo Sironen, Elizabeth C. Robinson 213 Part V. SAMNITE EXPANSION FROM CONFRONTATION TO CO-OPTATION AND MIGRATION I Sanniti del Nord Amalia Faustoferri 219 Sanniti in Daunia. Forme di popolamento e sistemi insediativi in area apula Maria Luisa Marchi 243 La costruzione del paesaggio di Alba Fucens sulla lunga durata. Riflessioni sull’occupazione dello spazio rurale tra lago, montagne e acquitrini Tiziana Ercole The foundation of Valentia (Hispania Citerior) between Samnites and Italic peoples Albert Ribera i Lacomba 257 269 Per Angela Di Niro Acknowledgments This volume had its origins in a conference held at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome in January 2016. It builds, however, on a much longer and fruitful collaboration between friends, colleagues, organizations and institutions from Italy and abroad. I would like to thank the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for funding the conference and the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), in particular the then Director of Ancient Studies Jeremia Pelgrom, for helping with the organization of the conference. I am also very grateful for the moral and practical support we always enjoy from the Comune di Jelsi and for our collaboration in the Centro Didattico Internazionale di Studi Archeologici di Jelsi. I also thank our research group from the NWO Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project, and the various colleagues who have helped in different stages with the conference organization, the editing of this book and the illustrations, in particular D. van der Putten, F. Fricke, K. Iannatuono, R. Kalkers and S. Roselaar, and of course Quasar with Francesco Zaccuri. The conference and the volume are ultimately and most of all the result of the long-standing collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologia Molise, which has been tremendously welcoming and supportive since we first started to work in Molise in 2003. Therefore, I dedicate this volume to Angela Di Niro, for her generosity and support in the study of the wider Tappino area. Rome, November 2021 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Aecae (Troia) Aesernia Agnone Alba Fucens Allifae Amiternum Anxianum Arpi Aufidena Aufinum (Capestrano) Ausculum Avezzano Bantia Barrea Beneventum Bovianum Cales Campochiaro Canosium Capo di Campo Capua Carlantino Carsioli Carthago Nova Castel di Ieri Castello di Matese Caudium Celano Civita Danzica (Rapino) Civita di Tricarico Cluviae Colle Cimino (Castelpetroso) Colle del Cerchio (Barisciano) Colle Mitra Colle Sparanise (Colle d’Anchise) Comino (Guardiagrele) Corfinium Croce di Picenze (Barisciano) Cumae Fagifulae Fonte del Romito (Capracotta) Forentum (Lavello) Fossa-Casale Fregellae Herculaneum Herdonia Histonium Iuvanum Laos Larinum 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 Loc. Porticone (Termoli) Luceria Maregelato (Caporciano) Masseria Casalini Sottana (Palazzo S. Gervasio) Metapontum Minturnae Montagna di Gildone Monte Boria Monte Cagozza (Calascio) Monte Cila Monte di Cerro (S. Eusanio Forconese) Monte S. Nicola (Pietravairano) Monte S. Paolo Monte Saraceno (Cercemaggiore) Monte Vairano Morgia della Chiusa (Gildone) Morgia Pietra Fenda (Trivento) Neapolis Nola Paestum Pallanum Peltuinum Pesco Morelli (Gildone) Pietrabbondante Pompeii Pozzilli Roccagloriosa Roma Rossano di Vaglio S. Angelo (Torrebruna) S. Giuliano di Puglia Saepinum Schiavi d’Abruzzo Scurcola Marsicana Serra di Vaglio Serra Lustrante Sipontum Suessa Sulmo Superaequum Teanum Sidicinum Telesia Terravecchia (Sepino) Terventum Tiati/Teanum Apulum Torre di Satriano Val Fondillo (Opi) Venafrum Venusia The ‘State’ of the Samnites and the ‘state’ of research in Samnium Tesse D. Stek One of history’s ironies is that the historicity of the allegedly fiercely anti-Roman Samnites can hardly be gauged outside the literary framework of their oppressors. As Rome’s most notorious opponents from Italian ground, the people referred to as Samnites in the written sources have always occupied a special position in scholarship on ancient Italy, and especially in relation to early Roman imperialism. This prominence of Samnium and the Samnites in classical studies can be traced directly to Livy’s detailed account of the violent Samnite-Roman conflicts from the mid-4th to the early 3rd centuries BC, generally referred to as the Samnite Wars. In Livy’s romanticised account, Romans and Samnites are portrayed both as formidable opponents and – almost – evenly matched. In the long modern historiography of ancient Italy and Samnium, Livy’s text has decisively contributed to the notion that the Samnites disposed of a strong military and social-political organization. Complemented with other evidence, notably the names of Samnite magistrates mentioned in inscriptions, and their connection to monumental central places such as sanctuaries, the theory of a strong Samnite state has become very powerful. Outstandingly, Adriano La Regina has in a series of contributions advanced this strong State perspective, and even if he not always convinced colleagues, he has forcefully shaken up the debate about the (con)federal or statal character of the Samnite polity or polities and its leadership.1 Still, the relationship between the outspoken literary tradition on the one hand, and the archaeology of the Samnite areas on the other, has since long been tenuous, and keeps haunting scholars from Salmon in 1967, to Tagliamonte’s seminal book of 1997, and to Scopacasa in 2015, notwithstanding the considerable accumulation of archaeological information over the last 60 years or so.2 Perhaps not coincidentally, therefore, the recent seed of change in this debate did not originate in archaeological breakthroughs but from another direction – again, from historiography. Over the last decades, research into the historiography of early Rome and Italy has pointed out the complexity of the portrayal of the Samnite socio-political and military organization in the ancient texts.3 The strongly rhetorical context within which the Samnite wars are positioned in the teleological account of Rome’s emergence as imperial power had been acknowledged before. But it had never led to a drastic revision of the historical value of Livy’s text for the time period that he described, Livy himself writing in the quite different context of the placated, amalgamated Roman Italy of the late first century BC.4 In particular, the framing of Samnite military excellence to enhance the achievement of the final Roman victory, and the potential fictionality of large parts of Livy’s account, have been fore- 1 La Regina 1989; Letta 1994; Tagliamonte 1997. 2 Salmon 1967; Tagliamonte 1997; see the review of Tagliamonte of Scopacasa 2015. 3 Senatore 2006. 4 Dench 1995. Tesse D. Stek 16 grounded in recent work, most challengingly by Tim Cornell in 2004.5 Cornell and Grossman began to fundamentally question the historical role of the Samnites in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, and tried to deconstruct notions of strong Samnite socio-political cohesion and organizational capacity, as well as its archaeological visibility. At least one message is clear and can be readily accepted: that renewed contextual analysis of both texts and archaeology, preferably in tandem, is needed. As to the historical argument, however, one feels that it is not yet fully supported by the evidence that is offered. As such, the ultimate conclusions reached by these recent ‘deconstructivist’ studies are not uniformly accepted across different schools of thought. Especially the issues of a shared Samnite identity or socio-political organization, and the reality of Samnite military power and expansion have again become the subjects of a heated debate. A better understanding of Samnite cohesion, organizational power and demography is not only important to grasp the functioning of a distinctive societal configuration in such challenging environmental conditions as the central-southern Apennines. Unavoidably, it also has important implications for our understanding of early Roman imperialism. In this sense, part of the debate on Samnium and the Samnites can be understood equally as an attempt to find a good proxy for early Roman state formation and imperialism, rather than as blue-sky research directed towards reaching a better understanding of the Samnite polities.6 As noted above, these developing theoretical positions have remained partly isolated from exciting new archaeological evidence that has turned up and keeps turning up. Indeed, our archaeological knowledge of the Samnite areas has increased markedly over the last decades. Excavations and field surveys have demonstrated the richness of the archaeological record; a richness that contrasts with modern expectations about highland society. These include new findings on the functioning of hill forts, villages, and cult sites, but also reassessments of Samnite demography (and hence manpower) on the basis of field survey data. Yet, how do such findings compare to current research in other areas and in other sites, perhaps adding different types of information by using other or new methods? The simple and modest aim of this volume is to add a selection of current studies that may help to fuel the discussion about Samnite society positively by bringing new insights and, above all, new data from various contexts and areas. In that sense, the volume presents the ‘state’ of research in Samnite areas. Without any ambition towards thematic or geographic comprehensiveness – a goal destined to fail in this still scarcely researched area –, its practical results may ultimately help also to assess the character of the ‘State’ of the Samnites, whichever way that polity may have to be defined and delimited. The volume offers a blend of more historical and analytical papers on the one hand, and on the other contributions that focus on new methodologies to explore Samnite society. The largest part of the chapters presents new archaeological discoveries or revisions of previous projects. The themes collected are intentionally complementary to the better-known and spectacular sites, and seek to create a fuller picture of Samnite society by adding also less studied perspectives, as well as by indicating areas where more research is needed. Various viewpoints are offered from both the ‘core’ Samnite areas and the peripheral areas, thus leaving space for questions surrounding cultural, ethnic and territorial definitions, and the supposedly waxing and waning of Samnite influence within central-south Italy. 5 Grossman 2009 makes the same argument as Cornell. 6 E.g. Eckstein 2006. The ‘State’ of the Samnites and the ‘state’ of research in Samnium 17 Fig. 1. Battle of the Caudine Forks, 321 BC. Lithograph by Ulpiano Checa in 1890. Museum of Colmenar de Oreja, Madrid, Spain. The structure of the volume follows five sections. The first section approaches the development of the socio-political structure of the Samnites by epigraphic, literary and comparative contributions covering the time period from the late 4th to the 1st centuries BC. The second section zooms in on a more detailed level of everyday life, and asks hard questions about the (in) visibility of enslaved and other marginal groups and individuals. A revision of the evidence from the domestic site of Pesco Morelli, as well as a recently excavated pottery kiln, provide a further context for the organization of local communities. The third section focuses on highland sites in Samnium. A framework as well as field approaches to gain a better understanding of the function of hillforts – a perennial problem in Samnite studies – are proposed. The site of Capo di Campo, a highland site with probably a cultic function as well, forms the preamble to the fourth section, which revolves around cult places. These sites range from high-altitude temple complexes such as at Monte San Nicola at Pietravairano, to the valley cult site at Trivento and the urban cult of Mars attested by an inscription in the town of Larino. Especially acute in the debate about the socio-political organization and general makeup of Samnite society is the nature of Samnite expansion. The fifth and last section is therefore dedicated to the reality and character of Samnite expansionism into the landscapes north, east and south of the core area – if we can still use this term anyway. This is a heavily contested but fundamental issue for understanding Samnite societal organization, also vis-à-vis its role in Roman Republican history. Recently, considerable efforts have been made to deconstruct the notion of Samnite southbound expansion and to view socio-cultural change in those areas Tesse D. Stek 18 as endemic processes. One feels that this might be an example of the baby being thrown out with the bathwater, and current studies reaffirm the reality of Samnite expansion.7 Whether we should consider Samnite expansion as the result of haphazard wandering and marauding of small groups or as concerted migratory movements is another matter. In any case, it is essential to consider Samnite expansionist developments side by side with contemporary Roman expansionism. Over the last years, much has changed in our understanding of early Roman colonization in the same time period as Samnite expansion.8 Certainly, the traditional stark dichotomy between a state-organized Roman model on the one hand, and a more random organic Samnite model on the other, needs revision, as the paper on Alba Fucens also illustrates. Finally, as a more far-flung example of Samnite mobility, we move to the colony of Valentia in Hispania Citerior. Here, Samnites and other Italic peoples took part in the exploration outside the Italian peninsula – again somewhat ironically – aligning their fortune with the vector of Roman expansionism. 7 Marchi 2020. 8 Stek and Pelgrom 2014; cf. e.g. Stek et al. 2015 for the Latin colony of Aesernia, placed in the core of former Samnite territory in 263 BC. Bibliography Cornell, T. 2004. “Deconstructing the Samnite Wars,” in H. Jones (ed.), Samnium: settlement and cultural change (Providence, R.I.) 115-131. Dench, E. 1995. From barbarians to new men: Greek, Roman, and modern perceptions of peoples of the central Apennines (Oxford). Eckstein, A. M. 2006. Mediterranean anarchy, interstate war, and the rise of Rome (Berkeley). Grossmann, L. 2009. Roms Samnitenkriege: Historische und historiographische Untersuchungen zu denJahren 327-290 v. Chr. (Düsseldorf ). La Regina, A. 1989. “I Sanniti,” in G. Pugliese Carratelli (ed.), Italia omnium terrarum parens (Milan) 301-432. Letta, C. 1994. “Dall’ “oppidum” al “nomen”. I diversi livelli dell’aggregazione politica nel mondo osco-umbro,” in L. Aigner Foresti, A. Barzanò and C. Bearzot (edd.), Federazioni e federalismo nell’Europa antica. Bergamo, 21 - 25 settembre 1992. Alle radici della casa comune europea, 1 (Milan) 387-405. Marchi, M. L. 2016. “Sanniti in Daunia. Dinamiche insediative fra VI e III secolo a.C.,” in M. L. Marchi (ed.), Identità e conflitti tra Daunia e Lucania preromane (Pisa) 51-84. Salmon, E. T. 1967. Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge). Scopacasa, R. 2015. Ancient Samnium. Settlement, culture, and identity between history and archaeology (Oxford). Senatore, F. 2006. La lega sannitica (Capri). Stek, T. D. and J. Pelgrom (edd.) 2014. Roman Republican colonization. New perspectives from archaeology and ancient history (Rome). Stek, T. D. et al. 2015. “An early Roman colonial landscape in the Apennine mountains: landscape archaeological research in the territory of Aesernia (Central-Southern Italy),” Analysis Archaeologica. An International Journal of Western Mediterranean Archaeology 1, 229-282. Tagliamonte, G. 1997. I Sanniti: Caudini, Irpini, Pentri, Carricini, Frentani (Milan). Tagliamonte, G. 2016. “review of Scopacasa 2015,” Antiquity, 821-823.