ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

pair of extra-urban cults that cater to the population as a whole: Silvanus focusing on themale members of the community, Diana on the female.Therefore, based on the (admittedly tentative) dating of these three sanctuaries,the Latin colonists retained the use of the Volscian shrine on top of Monte San Casto,which showed worship from the fourth century BCE. 174They devoted small objectsthere, some of which showed a connection to cults in other colonies along the Liris rivervalley. The colonists built the two temples in the forum area in the early third century.Votives pertinent to Mars and decoration indicative of Potnia Theron appear at both theurban and extra-urban sanctuaries. The Hercules and Silvanus shrine arose some time inthe following century, perhaps from the pressure to add a masculine liminal cult to thearea or perhaps as part of a growing sanctuary to Mars, Diana, and Hercules. Based onFigure 4.1, these linked sanctuaries fall in two of the five landscape categories: city(temples) and natural landscape (cliff and peak sanctuaries).It is interesting to note that the later shrine to Isis lay on the road out of the city,much as the Venus shrines in Fregellae and Paestum did. Unfortunately, this observationtells us nothing about the priorities of the Republican colony, and so it cannot be pushedfarther. It is sufficient to note once again that the cults in Sora were not to the tutelarydeities of Rome in the middle Republic. Nor was there significant coincidence with thedeities of Fregellae or Paestum, with two exceptions. One is the ever-present Hercules,See Cato Agr. 83 for the restriction of rites to Silvanus to men only. For the integrative functions ofprocessions to extra-urban cults see de Polignac (1995), pp. 60-81.174 Livy (9.23.2) mentions the betrayal of the Soran arx to a troop of Romans. Based on the topography ofSora and the placement of the city's walls, Monte San Casto must be that arx and the votive deposit foundthere probably marks the location of the main sanctuary.189