ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

language and epigraphic tradition by the local population. 169The ethnicity and socialstatus of the dedicants of the numerous small bronze figurines and terracotta votives isless clear (as will be discussed in chapter 5), and so caution is required in asserting thatthey were the exclusive dedications of a certain subset of the population.This ispertinent because, without secure identification of ritual practice by colonists or locals,analysis of the impact of the ritual landscape on both populations rests on clearchronological distinctions in practice and on evidence of the processes of creolization andsyncretism.VII. Prospectus for Chapters 2-5As background for my study of religion in the colonies, Chapter 2 provides ahistory of colonial foundations and their commissioners between 338 and 169 inSamnium and Northern Italy, based on Livy's Ab Urbe Condita and other literarysources. This chapter also examines what reasons and interests individual commissionershad in founding colonies when and where they did. The overall pattern is that theindividual commissioners often had their own reasons for wanting to establish colonies;these reasons were often complementary to the senate's need for the colonies as militaryoutposts, but not exclusively based on that need. Moreover, the factional divisions andpersonal ambitions of the magistrates drove the composition of the commissions and,thus, the form and institutions of the colonies founded.In Chapter 3,1 introduce the method of choosing commissioners and discussmechanics of founding a colony from the viewpoint of the experience of the tresviri as169 C/iI 2 3201170 Glinister (2006), pp. 27-28 with specific reference to anatomical terracotta votives.50