ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

315 and 305 BCE 136 and the official colonial foundation two years later, 137 the city wasno t m tone of the main Volscian strongholds.The location was of such vital strategicimportance that the Samnites occupied the city several times,but in the end the Romangenerals won the territory for the purposes of exploiting its strategic control over the heartof the central Apennines and establishing a bulwark against the Samnite armies. 140Livyexplicitly states that the bulk of the local population of Sora remained there after therevolt in 305 BCE. 141Thus, the Latin colonists of 303 BCE joined a local population ofVolscians, which had most likely undergone significant depredations throughout thestruggles with the Samnite and Roman armies.Much of the archaeological patrimony of Sora has been lost due to continuousoccupation of the site, violent earthquakes, and frequent flooding of the Liris river. 142Nonetheless, there is evidence of two Republican temples in the city center, a cliffsanctuary to the north, and another sanctuary on the summit of Monte San Casto to thenorthwest. A temple of Isis was located perhaps in the northern suburbs of the city; thistemple is outside of the current study since it was not constructed before the first centuryBCE. 143The other sacred precincts may have been part of one large sanctuary complex136 Livy 7.28.6 and 9.23.2; Diod. Sic. 19.72.3. Livy seems to be chronologically confused at 9.23.2, wherehe relates that the Roman consuls are making war on Sora because the citizens there put the Romancolonists to death. At 7.28.6, Livy only gives notice that the Volscians were beaten and Sora taken. Thereis no indication that a colony was sent to Sora at this time. Cf. Salmon (1970), p. 175 n. 76.137 Livy 10.1.1; 3.2; 9.8; Veil. Pat. 1.14.5.138 Livy 10.1.2. For the Volscians in Sora before Roman occupation, see Rizzello (1998), pp. 7-36.According to archaeological evidence, the territory of Sora had been occupied sparsely in the Bronze andIron ages. Livy 9.24.1-15 suggests that, in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, the Volscians restructuredtheir scattered settlements into a single community in this location. Cf. Mezzazzappa (2003), p. 121.139 Livy 9.43.1; 44.16; Diod. Sic. 20.80.1.140 Mezzazzappa (2003), pp. 99-100.141 Livy 9.24.14-15.142 Mezzazzappa (2003), p. 100.143 Ibid., pp. 115-116.183