Panel 7.3 – Boundaries Archaeology: Economy, Sacred Places, Cultural Influences in the Ionian Adriatic Areas

Organiser/Chair:

• Enrico Giorgi (Bologna University)
• Giuseppe Lepore (Bologna University)

External Discussant:

• Luigi Maria Caliò (Università di Catania)

Speakers:

• Francesco Belfiori and Sara Morsiani (University of Bologna)
  "Romanization”, Economy and Rituals in Medio-Adriatic Cult Places
• Enrico Giorgi (University of Bologna) / Filippo Demma (MIBACT)
  Monterinaldo: A Roman Sanctuary in the middle of Picenum
• Cecilia D'Ercole (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Ehess)
  Cults, Navigation and Maritime Practices in the Middle and Southern Adriatic (6th-2nd centuries BC)
• Anna Gamberini (University of Bologna) / Lorenzo Mancini / Nadia Aleotti (University of Pavia)
  Sacred places, territorial economy, and cultural identity in northern Epirus (Chaonia)
• Atalanti Betsiou (University of Ioannina)
  Marcus Antonius and the negotiatores of Dyrrhachium

The aim of this panel is the analysis of the institutional, economical and cultural development in the Ionian and Adriatic borderlands. This process derives from the contacts between middle Adriatic regions and Northern Epirus on one hand and the culturally hegemonic centres on the other.
This meeting generated mutual influences and cultural osmosis in various ways and times, linked to different historical and geographical contexts, but often with similar results.
Recent archaeological researches allow us to assume that sacred places are privileged contexts to analyze these phenomena: in fact, they are gathering places and cultural mediation centres involved in economical and political interests. Sanctuaries are also strictly connected to urban genesis, to territories occupation dynamics and to relations between town and country.
The papers move from specific study cases and archaeological researches still in progress but aim to offer a general overview. These researches are possible thanks to the collaboration between Bologna University, Department of History and Cultures (DiSCi) and several Institutions such as British School at Rome, Università Orientale at Naples, Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti Paesaggio of the Marche region, Tirana Archaeological Institute and Ecole des Hautes Etudies en Sciences Sociales (Paris)​.

1. Francesco Belfiori and Sara Morsiani (University of Bologna)

“Romanization”, Economy and Rituals in Medio-Adriatic Cult Places
The paper focuses on materials from some sanctuaries of the Picena area between III and I sec. B.C. The aim of the paper is to investigate their role in economic and cultural transformations during this period. The so-called Etruscan-Lazio-Campanian ex-votos, architectonic terracottas as well as pottery from these contexts show the role of these sanctuaries as centers of production and import of specific classes of materials with exclusive sacred destination. In some cases, the production of these objects takes place in loco, such as in the sanctuary of Monte Rinaldo. Here materials suggest the spread of cultural models through the displacement of people from the Tyrrhenian area into the middle Adriatic region, together with the colonization of the territory. In other cases, as in the federal center of Asculum, early indirect contacts with Etruscan-Lazio culture are attested by the presence of objects imported and then reinterpreted according to local ritual practices.

2. Enrico Giorgi and Francesco Belfiori (University of Bologna) / Filippo Demma (MIBACT) / Stephen Kay (British School at Rome)

Monterinaldo: A Roman Sanctuary in the middle of Picenum
The Sanctuary of Monterinaldo (III-I BC) is one of the most representative and less known monuments in the Mid-Adriatic area. It rises in the heart of the Picenum along the border between the territory of the civitas foederata of Asculum and that of the Latin Colony of Firmun Picenum. It was discovered in the last century and then partially reconstructed. The Sanctuary was originated in 3rd cent. B. C., in a site frequented from the Iron Age. In the 2nd cent. B.C. it was rebuilt with a Tuscan temple in the center of a square open to the Valle dell'Aso, according to architectural features comparable to those of the sanctuaries such as Gabi in the Latium.
In 2016 research finally resumed, thanks to a project involving the Archaeological Superintendence for Marche Region, the University of Bologna and the British School at Rome. The first Campaign focused on the analysis of archival documentation and on a new topographical and geophysical survey. In summer 2017, the first Excavation Campaign finally took place. Now we know that the Sanctuaty was dedicated to Juppiter, with others secondaries deities. The excavation also provided important information for architectural reconstruction and its cronology.
The main research concerns the understanding of the role of the Sanctuary during the Roman colonization of Picenum, in organization of the rural population, in administration of Aso valley, where there was not an urban center (as in adjacent valleys), and in its economic development.

3. Cecilia D'Ercole (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Ehess)

Cults, Navigation and Maritime Practices in the Middle and Southern Adriatic (6th-2nd centuries BC)
The fearsome reputation of Adriatic navigation has probably fostered in ancient times the particular interweaving between sea routes and places of worship, which is found throughout the Adriatic coast. My paper will focus on some aspects of maritime cults, consecrated to heroes, such as Diomedes, and to some Olympic divinities, such as Zeus and Aphrodite, in the middle and lower Adriatic, between the 6th and the 2nd centuries BC. The communication will highlight some rituals and practices (votive offerings, inscribed dedications, libations) which have some similarities despite the different contexts. It will be thus possible to highlight the particular link with some significants points of the maritime landscape, such as islands (Palagruza, Tremiti Islands), caves (Grotta Porcinara, Grotta dell'Acqua), promontories (Mount Gargano), which mark the main routes of the Adriatic navigation. Within these paths and cults, a particular attention will be paid to the role of the oracle of Dodona, which has so far not been considered for the development of the Ionian-Adriatic trade, and seems on the contrary to have had a great reputation for commercial mobility, directed in particular towards the Corinthian Gulf, the sites of the Ionian-Adriatic region (Epidamnos) and Southern Italy (Taranto, Syracuse), between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C.

4. Anna Gamberini (University of Bologna) / Lorenzo Mancini / Nadia Aleotti (University of Pavia)

Sacred places, territorial economy, and cultural identity in northern Epirus (Chaonia)
The only sacred place in Chaonia whose material, spatial, and cultic features are sufficiently known is the Sanctuary of Asklepios in Butrint. However, only its middle-to-late Hellenistic and Roman stages have been extensively investigated, focusing on the role of the Asklepieion as a political and self-identity point of reference for the koinon of the Prasaiboi first, and then on the modifications of the complex from the foundation of the Augustan colony onwards. The origins of the cult and the earliest stages of the sanctuary, instead, are much more uncertain. Their traditional dating to the late 4th or early 3rd century BC relied mostly on the alleged chronology of the ceramics found by L. M. Ugolini, in 1929, in a votive deposit. A reassessment of these materials, now lost but published in detail by the Italian archaeologist, is still lacking. The aim of the paper, therefore, is to investigate the origin and the development of the Asklepieion in the light of material culture, comparing
Butrint’s case with that from other northern Epirote sites, and in particular with Phoinike, capital of the Hellenistic koinon. The relevance of this topic, indeed, oversteps the boundaries of Butrint, providing an insight on the self-formation processes of Chaonian tribes from the emancipation of Butrint from Corcyra in the late Classical period, to the relations of the region with the Western shore of the Ionian Sea, until the intervention of Rome in the first half of the 2nd century BC.

5. Atalanti Betsiou (University of Ioannina)

Marcus Antonius and the negotiatores of Dyrrhachium
The commercial classes of the negotiatores and mercatores developed a wide range of activity in different parts of the Greek world, according to their interests. In the correspondence of Cicero to his friends we are well informed of the presence of active entrepreneurs in Narona (Marcus Bolanus), Buthrotum (T. Pomponius Atticus) and Dyrrachium (C. Flavius). The most energetic stands out the case of T. Pomponius Atticus, who tried unsuccessfully to forestall the deductio colonia of Buthrotum with the support of his friend, M. Tullius Cicero. The same process was engaged for the cases of Dyrrachium and Byllis after Julius Caesar’s victory over Gnaeus Pompeius in Pharsalus (48 BC.). Nevertheless, the assassination of the dictator in the curia of Rome (44 BC.) postponed these plans on the Greek calends.
The study of the bronze coinage of Dyrrachium unfolds the political stance of its citizens during the struggle for ultimate power between Marcus Antonius and Gaius Octavius in the last decade until the naval battle of Actium. The inscriptions of Greek alphabet on this coinage prove also, that the city hasn’t become a roman colony yet.
The aim of this presentation is twofold: a) to underline the Greek character of the city, and b) the involvement of the commercial class in politics after the battle of Philippi (42 BC).