CULTUS’ action is organised in two parts. The first includes fieldwork in Italy, archival research, and desk-based analysis at the University of Exeter, and collection of data from the case-study area that includes the Alban Hills region, SE of Rome. Originally inhabited by the Latins, this area became fashionable with the Romans after their conquest, and a place for leisure retreats of new ruling classes including the emperors between the 2nd c. BC and the 2nd c. AD. The cultic landscape of this area, its history and special relation with Rome (the myth-historical links with the Trojan origins of Rome) offer considerable scope for exploring the phenomena investigated. The newly discovered Sanctuary of the Bona Dea at the 13th mile of the Via Appia - the one in front of which P. Clodius was murdered - is the most significant example. Fieldworks (2017-2019) undertaken at Villa Santa Caterina, Castel Gandolfo, as part of the ongoing project Contextualising the Past in the Alban Hills (Fig.1) proved the sacral nature of the remains, and recommend that this sacred place was created long before (3rd c. BC) the 1st c. BC, when the literary sources tell us that it was included within a private estate. CULTUS, in addition, considers the possibility that the cult site continued to work as a ʻpublicʼ temple both after the privatisation in the late Republican period and the inclusion of the estate within the imperial treasury. Interesting is also the Villa of Secciano. I localised it through unpublished archival documents, and I shed new light on whether the villa incorporated the Caput aquae Ferentinae, the source of a small river within a grove sacred to the deity Ferentina, where the Latins used to hold their assemblies. The second part uses the data from the case studies and relates them to the wider context. Comparative examples include cult sites in Rome, its surroundings, and other regions in Italy.
An answer to research questions that had not solved in previous research has been searched throughout the project. CULTUS’ achievements include:
- From a legal perspective ʻpublicʼ and ʻprivateʼ were clear and defined concepts in antiquity. But the ancient categorisation does not parallel the modern categories of ʻpublicʼ and ʻprivateʼ.
- The appropriation of a sacred building by a private individual, and the incorporation into his estate was an illicit act under Roman law. In principle, instead, the establishment of sacred buildings on private estates was allowed. The possibility that the incorporated or the newly established sacred buildings worked as public temples was possible, though the private landowner did not become the legal owner or possessor of the sacred building. By reassessing the notion of “res sacra” (“sacred thing”, including a place or object consecrated to the gods), and recognising that a res sacra is neither public nor private, CULTUS put into the equation the concept of “sacred space” as a “spatial” conceptual category on its own. It was only the consecration that made a building or an object sacred, no matter whether it was standing in a private or a public piece of land.
- Following the changes occurred in Roman society and politics after the Second Punic War, laws facilitated the process of consecrating temples. This marked the beginning of two known phenomena: a) influential private individuals became increasingly interested in consecrating temples and attaching their name to civic temples and sanctuaries; b) domus and villae began to host several gods, in addition to the Lares and domestic gods. Beyond the state of the art, CULTUS claims that funding sacra publica on private properties became an alternative form of munificence and benefaction of the local political elite to the community. It was, by all means, an act of euergetism (so far a term that scholarship applies only to the phenomenon of elite gift-giving to cities or to groups of people within them). And it had the transactional character that scholarship stresses when speaking of euergetism, for these benefactions were made in exchange for publicly awarded honours.
- What CULTUS argues is that emperors’ cultic actions in their villa were inspired by and followed models successfully exploited by private individuals.
CULTUS’ results have been disseminated in international research seminars and conferences; 4 peer-reviewed articles have been submitted and will be published soon. A monograph is in preparation and will be submitted by summer 2022
