ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

A more accurate picture arises from analysis of individual colonies: Cosa,Minturnae, and Ostia only received their capitolia in the late Republic.Even so, it isunclear if the temples identified as capitolia were actually temples to Jupiter, Juno, andMinerva in all cases. At Minturnae, there is no evidence that the Etrusco-Italian templebuilt in the second century BCE to replace the temple of Jupiter was a capitolium}* Asat Cosa, there is only the circular assumption that Roman colonies had capitolia,therefore, if there was a prominent temple, especially one with three cellae, it must be acapitolium. Bispham urges scholars to leave any discussion of capitolia out of mid-Republican colonial studies, especially of Latin colonies. 144Furthermore, he notes thatthe cult of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, as opposed to local cults of various other Jupiters,came late, if at all, to Republican colonies. 145Bispham explains that three processes ledto the gradual adoption of the Capitoline Triad as an expression of Roman identity in thecolonies: Rome's increasing military dominance in Italy from the third century BCE on,the new wealth brought by successful conquest in the second and first centuries, and theneed the elites of older colonies felt to emulate the urban framework in the newercolonies in the north. Thus, it is anachronistic to assume that every Roman colony, andespecially the Latin colonies, founded in the early or middle Republic had a capitolium.142 Bispham (2000), p. 174-175.143 Livi (2006), p. 97.144 Bispham (2006), p. 93. Bispham shortly thereafter comments that there was a temple to the CapitolineTriad in Luna from 177 BCE, the foundation of the colony. Clearly this subject requires much caution, anda careful respect of temporal boundaries.145 Bispham (2006), pp. 117-122.43