Satricum from the 7th until the late 5th century BC. Satricum (modern Le Ferriere), an ancient town of Latium, situated some 60 km to the SE of Rome, in a low-lying region to the south of the Alban Hills, to the NW of and at the border of the former Pontine Marshes. It was accessible direct from Rome by a road running more or less parallel to the Via Appia, to the SW of it. It is said to have been an Alban colony: it was a member of the Latin League of 499 BC and became Volscian in 488 BC. It was several times won and lost by the Romans, and twice destroyed by fire. After 346 BC we hear of it only in connection with the temple of Mater Matuta. Satricum lay on the right bank of the Astura river. Antonio Nibby mistakenly identified ancient Satricum with the low hill at Borgo Montello, then known as the Tenuta di Conca, surrounded by tufa cliffs, 1.5 km ESE of present-day Le Ferriere, on which were still scanty remains of walling in rectangular blocks of the same material. In 1896, the hill above Le Ferriere yielded remains of an Archaic and Early Classical sanctuary ascribed to Mater Matuta, during excavations begun under the direction of Prof. H. Graillot of the University of Bordeaux, member of the French School of Rome. After two weeks this work was suspended by order of the Italian government, and then resumed under the supervision of F. Barnabei, R. Mengarelli and A. Cozza. The objects discovered were brought to the Villa Giulia Museum at Rome. After some cursory investigations during the 1950s, the site of Satricum was brought to light again in 1977, as a result of a concerted effort by the Italian authorities to rescue the antiquities in the Roman campagna, that were acutely threatened by large-scale urbanisation and agricultural reform. The alarm was first made public by the exhibition Civiltà del Lazio primitivo at Rome (1976). As a result, the Royal Dutch Institute at Rome was invited by the Comitato per lArcheologia laziale to participate in a rescue project of local investigations and to ascertain the state of preservation of the site of former Satricum. Since 1977, a comprehensive research programme at the site has been carried out through annual excavation and study campaigns. This concerned, first of all, activities by the Royal Dutch Institute at Rome (C. Stibbe), later joined by the Universities of Groningen (prof. M. Kleibrink) and Nijmegen (prof. J. de Waele). As of 1990, the project is being executed by the University of Amsterdam alone, under the direction of prof. M. Gnade. Several inscriptions bearing the name of Mater Matuta have now made undisputed the identification of the city on and around the acropolis directly to the south of todays Le Ferriere with ancient Satricum. There remains, however, some discussion on the equation, proposed by C.M. Stibbe, of Satricum with the legendary city of Suessa Pometia. The sanctuary on top op the acropolis was re-excavated in 1978-1981. Metrological analyses by Prof. J. de Waele, published in 1981 convincingly demonstrated a succession of three building phases dated from the late 7th to the early 5th century BC. Further investigations in the subsoil showed a particularly large, rather isolated hut to have preceded them, possibly with a religious function. Evidence for a large number of other huts of various shapes testify to a concentrated use of the acropolis during Latials periods II-IV (1000 - 580 BC). The three temples succeeding one another are characterized by Etrusco-Ionian, Campanian, and central-Italic traditions, respectively, in material, technology, and artistic background, evidencing the character of Satricum as a true crossroads of regionally competing, or successive, cultures. The discovery, in 1977, of the Lapis Satricanus re-used in the foundations of the last temple and bearing the name Publius Valerius Poplicola testifies to the political connections between Satricum and Rome during her earliest stages as a Republic. The Archaic Period at Satricum is evidenced by a number of large courtyard buildings on and at the foot of the acropolis. To the NE, a network of large roads, amongst which a Sacra Via, in combination with a dense urban build-up have been traced, documenting various phases from the 6th to 4th century BC. Among the more surprising recent (1981) findings is a large necropolis dated to the 5th and 4th century BC, within the agger in the SW corner of the Archaic city. The material culture of the populace buried here, yielding i.a. a rare inscription on a lead miniature axe bearing the inscription iukus|ko|efiei, shows strong connections with indigenous, Volscian traditions best known from the interior regions of the Apennine Peninsula. In fact, the discovery corroborates the historical traditions of the Volscians conquering Satricum in 488 BC. Tombs of this kind have successively been found both on the very top of the acropolis and intermixed with the remains of roads in the NW city area. In addition to ongoing field-work, the storerooms and archives of the Villa Giulia Museum have gradually become accessible for advanced research. Thus the precise details are now known of the circumstances that led to the first excavation campaign by Graillot, the Italian governments intervention, and the subsequent neglect of the Satricum objects in the Villa Giulia. In addition, many object categories have now been properly studied and published (finds from the Archaic Votive Deposit, from the Orientalising and Archaic necropolises to the NE of the city, and the architectural terracottas of the sanctuary). (ratna)
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 22:40:07 +0000
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