ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

have a colonial capitolium, but rather it is a unique case among a long-standing scatter ofcultic influences. Since so much of the Roman political system depended on popularityand success, Lepidus' achievements could have been something the other magistratesmight envy and try to emulate, however, leading to more capitolia in later colonies.Why was the capitolium not a popular addition to recently founded colonies inNorthern Italy in the middle Republic, though? There were two contemporary attitudes inRome which make the idea that the commissioners imposed Rome's patron deities ontothe colonies unattractive. First, the Roman people were acknowledged as the mostreligious by close observers such as Polybius, and they themselves attributed theirmilitary success to their attentiveness to the pax deorum. 144In a recent article, E. Orlinnotes that Rome did not deprive local people of the cults adopted through evocatio or onthe advice of the Sibylline Books, but took on the responsibility for the proper cultivationof deities in Rome. 145This habit demonstrates that the flow of religious customs couldoccur from the periphery to the center. That the Romans consistently did not deprive thelocals of the cult so much as take on the cult in Rome, seems to be a conscious decisionon the part of the Roman magistrates and senate in an effort to maintain Romansuperiority of orthopraxy in regards to the pax deorum. Livy's narrative betrays a veryRomano-centric assumption that foreigners did not understand religious matters properlycommunity-building purpose of these decorations still stands if Luca was the colony on Pisa land, and Lunawas founded on land which the Pisans wanted back from the Ligurians.144 For the Romans as religious see Polyb. 6.56.6-14. For the late Republic view that religious scruple ledto military success, see Cic. Har. Resp. 19. See also Livy 30.30.26 where Livy has Hannibal declare thatthe Romans will control all of Spain, Italy, and Africa because: quando ita dis placuit, externa etiam terramarique uideamus regentes imperio.145 Orlin (2007), p. 62.235