1 Earliest Rome

4,11 The grove ofAlbunea
building may have been (as it is often called) a 'shrine of the city Lares'. The links
between the public Lares and the genius of the emperor (see Vol. 1, 184-6) could
further suggest a connection with the imperial cult. None of this is certain. For the
idea that the building was a library, see Richardson (1988) 273-5-
4. The decoration on the surviving altar (the civic crown, two laurel trees, the clipeus vir-
tutis (honorific shield) - see Vol. 1, 186 and fig. 4.3) clearly links this temple with the
imperial cult. Although often known as the 'Temple of Vespasian', the building dates to
the Augustan period.
5. Votive material on this site suggests a cult building of Apollo from the sixth century B.C.;
but the preserved form of the temple dates from the second century B.C. The cult of
Apollo was the major pre- Roman cult of the town, with links with the Greek world. The
cella, for example, contained an egg-shaped stone, an omphalos - a model of the ompha­
los at Delphi, the 'navel of the world'.
4.11 The grove of Albunea and its oracle
Virgil, AeneidvuM-lQl
The king, 1
The religion of Italy was not simply an urban phenomenon. The countryside
also contained important cult-centres, often associated with natural springs,
woods or woodland clearings {luci - see above 4.5). One such shrine is
described by Virgil - an oracle of the god Fatinus at a place called Albunea,
amidst sulphurous springs. Although a poetic account, it may be inspired by
cults in the region of modern Solforata (near ancient Lavinitim, 1.5b) whose
name clearly derives from the sulphurous exhalations that once distinguished
the area. Inscriptions found there (commemorating the Fates) suggest that it
may have been the site of an oracular shrine.
Much the same procedure is described in a passage from Ovid's Fasti, IV
649-72, which is certainly influenced by Virgil's text, but also shows some differences.
The King in question this time is Numa, who goes through the same
rituals and receives a similar spoken response from Faunus in a dream; however,
the result this time is not straight advice, like that offered to Latinus, but
a ridding answer ('let one heifer give up rwo lives at the sacrifice') requiring
interpretation by Numa's friend the nymph Egeria; the outcome is the setting
up of one of the Roman festivals, the Fordicidia - the sacrifice of a heifer in calf.
See further: Vol. 1, 13; Tilly (1947) 103-11*; Guarducci (1955); R. E. A.
Palmer (1974) 79-171; Cazanove and Scheid (1993). For the inscriptions,
ILLRP10-12; Guarducci (1946-8).
troubled by the portents, goes to visit the oracle of Faunus, his prophet father,
and consults the groves beneath lofty Albunea - greatest of forests, resounding with its
holy cascade and exhaling its deadly vapour from the darkness. Here the Italian tribes and
all the land of Oenotria 2
seek counsel in times of uncertainty. Here the priest brings
offerings, lies beneath the silent night on the outspread fleeces of the sheep killed in
sacrifice and woos slumber; he sees many visions flying about him in wondrous fashion
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