ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

assert that colonization in their region sprung from diverse motivations and resulted in avariety of settlement types, unlike typical Roman colonization. 1 5It is time toacknowledge that Roman colonies of the middle Republic were just as diverse and just asfar removed from 'typical Roman colonization.'Some caution is also necessary in interpreting the process of common worship atcolonial sanctuaries. Webster, in her work on creolization in the religious systems of theRoman provinces, offers two caveats that are equally applicable to Republican religion inItaly: 1) the ancient evidence available in the form of inscriptions, votives, andiconography is sparse and often poorly contextualized, 166 and 2) we cannot assume thatchoices made by the dedicants were always dictated by economic necessity nor thatRoman models were considered the default choice.Webster offers the example thatthe rarity of inscriptions for the Celtic goddess Epona was not indeed caused by therelative poverty of the Celtic dedicants, but rather represented the unwillingness of thededicants to take syncretism beyond a certain point.In a Republican setting, not onlydoes this type of concern apply, but we must also be cautious about assigning ethnicity tothe dedicants of various items without specific evidence of their origin. For example, aLatin inscription on a second century BCE votive statue base in Aesernia specifies thatSamnite incolae made a dedication to Venus; this is clear evidence of use of RomanEven Osborne (1998), p. 252 goes so far as to assert that Greek colonies in fifth and fourth centuriesBCE can look like Roman colonies, in that some were founded for military reasons with settlers chosen tobenefit from equal plots of land. This oversimplifies the very complex development that Romancolonization also underwent.166 Webster (2001), p. 220.167 Ibid. p. 222.168 Ibid. She cites the quality of the workmanship as evidence that some reliefs without inscriptions werenonetheless offered by wealthy individuals.