ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

intention and colonial strategy held by the commissioners, the colonies did not espouse acodified Roman settlement pattern, but instead the political and cultural principles of theirfounders.The religious life of each settlement developed beyond its initial foundation bymeans of the interactions of the colonists and local populations. Through a new model ofcolonial foundation which combines the human factors of Roman colonization:commissioners, colonists, and locals, with their impact on, and interaction with, thecolonial landscape, I demonstrate that the religious landscape of the colonies of Fregellae,Paestum, and Sora did not mirror that of Rome, but reflected the religious and spatialneeds of the colonists. Finally, the evidence for the cults of Juno, Diana, Minerva,Hercules, Mars, and Jupiter in Central and Northern Italy shows that the colonistsparticipated in many religious systems: some cults honored Roman versions of the gods,but more honored local, Latin, or even Mediterranean conceptions of a deity. Thus, thesecults drew the colonists together with the locals in a shared religious tradition familiar toboth groups.VI