ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

that place, it represented the indicium libertatis of the Latin colonists of Paestum.Torelli postulates that the colonists were therefore primarily plebeian, which iscorroborated by the type of new shrines installed by them: Mater Matuta, Magna Mater,* 199and especially Mens Bona, the good memory of a client to his patron.Thus, the newcults of the Latin colony of Paestum were inspired by cults familiar to the Roman andLatin colonists without directly modeling the cults pertaining to the Roman government.The new Latin and Roman elements of the religious system in Paestum were notthe only cults honored by the colonists, however. Archaeological evidence indicatescontinuation of worship at the major shrines throughout the city and countryside. In thecity's North Sanctuary, the colonists worshipped Minerva at the temple of Athena.Inthe South Sanctuary, veneration of Apollo continued as well: the colonists erected a newmonumental altar for the temple. 124The sanctuary of Aesculapius, originally constructedaround 300 BCE, also was incorporated into the religious landscape of the Latincolony. 125As mentioned above (pp. 171-173), the Latin colonists only destroyed or deemphasizedthe urban sanctuaries with political significance to the local population.Melos, PMG 758; Hdt. 7.26; PL Symp. 215b; Diod. Sic. 3,59,2ff.; Anth. Pal. 7.696; 9.266; 16.6; Alex.Polyh. FGrH273 F 76; Ov. Met. 6.382-400; Apul. Flor. 3)121 Torelli (1999b), pp. 73-74. For a similar conclusion in Alba Fucens, see Liberatore (1995), p. 254.122 Torelli (1999b), pp. 71-79. Torelli also pushes his conjectural temple identifications into thisconclusion, although he does admit that they are superfluous and the solidly-evidenced temples are enoughto support the plebeian leanings of the colonists (p. 71.) Torelli also brings up the evidence that Paestumoffered significant help to Rome during the Punic Wars, as a client would to his patron (pp. 79 based onLivy 22.36.9 and 26.39.5). I think that Torelli's inference that the colony was flooded with freedmen half acentury after the colonization (based on a letter from Philip V to the Larisseans (SIG114. 543,11. 32 f.)) isunsupported. The same attitudes correspond well with the client-patron dynamic.123 As known from a block of stone inscribed with [MJenervae (ILP 6 = CIL I 2 3148) and the rim of adolium also inscribed with the name of the goddess (Torelli (1999b), pp. 52-53.) Cf. Torelli (1999a), pp.45-47.124 Torelli (1999b), p. 59. Greco, D'Ambrosio, and Theodorescu (1996), p. 71.125 Crawford (2006), p. 62. Torelli (1999b), p. 61. Greco, D'Ambrosio, and Theodorescu (1996), pp. 70-71.178