PIETRABBONDANTE
Isernia prov., Abruzzi e Molise, Italy.
Situated in territory which belonged
in antiquity to the Pentri Samnites. Archaeological excavations in the last century uncovered a theater and a
small temple. New excavations have led to the discovery
of a large temple and have clarified the eminently religious character and the exclusively Samnite influence on
the entire complex. As a result, the hypothetical identification with Bovianum Vetus has been abandoned.
Mt. Saraceno (1215 m above sea level) is fortified on
its upper slopes by a circuit wall of large irregular stone
blocks which descended to encircle the area of the inhabited area itself, but left outside its compass the area
of the great sanctuary. This fortification, like others scattered thickly about Samnium, is probably to be dated to the period of the Samnite wars, and more precisely to the 4th c. B.C.
The sanctuary rises on a slope of the mountain, 966 m
above sea level, and dominates a large section of Pentri
Samnium. The oldest archaeological evidence collected
to date demonstrates the existence of a vigorous building
phase even in the second half of the 3d c. B.C. To this
period belong weapons, coins, terracottas, and stone
architectural elements. Throughout that level, there are
signs of a total destruction linked to the period of the
war with Hannibal when only the Pentri among the
Samnites withheld support from the Carthaginians.
The small temple (Temple A) is in fact to be assigned
to a period somewhat later. It sits on a high podium
(1.65 m), is prostyle, tetrastyle, and has a floor plan of
ca. 12.2 by 17.7 m. The building is badly preserved, but
numerous epigraphic documents in Oscan have been
discovered. One of those inscriptions has the name of
the dedicator, the meddix tuticus Gn. Staiis Stafidins
(Vetter, 151 = Rhein. Mus. 1966, no. 15), and another
which, mentioning Samnium (safinim, Vetter, 149),
shows the interest in the sanctuary related to the
entire tribal unit of the Pentri Samnites. In that light,
must also be understood the inscription on which the
name of Bovianum appears (Vetter, 150) and which
gave rise to the false identification with Bovianum
Vetus.
The reason for the exceptional development of the
sanctuary in the second half of the 2d c. B.C. must be
understood as a direct result of the importance which
the Samnites attached to the war with Hannibal, of the
the emphasis placed by one segment of the population
on Roman citizenship, and of the resurgence of the other
segment, toward the end of the 2d c., of anti-Roman
political persuasion. In that period, a grand theater-temple complex was built directly over the remains of the
sanctuary which had been destroyed in the 3d c. and in
connection with which the cult of Victory is evidenced
by a dedicatory votive inscription in Oscan (Rhein, Mus.
1966, no. 1). The theater is the Hellenistic type, with a
cavea surrounded by a polygonal wall and with an ornamental plan present also in the small theater at Pompeii,
but already attested, ca. 150 B.C., at Sarno in Campania.
The large temple (Temple B), which is situated above
and behind the theater, is on a high podium similar to
that of the Patturelli temple at Capua. Temple B is
prostyle, tetrastyle, in antis, with a tripartite cella according to the usual form described by Vitruvius, with
an ample pronaos containing Corinthian columns and
flanked by a symmetrical portico. We also know the
name of one of the magistrates who contracted the building: G. Staatis L. Klar (Vetter, 154). The floor plan of
the temple as well as its connections with the theater
reveal the adoption of architectural planning from Rome
and Latium.
The interior of the sanctuary ceased to be used at the
end of the social war. Archaeological evidence for a
succeeding period shows that its precinct came under the
control of private rural farms, so much so that it was
used for occasional burial sites from the middle of the
3d c. A.D.
With the administrative order following the social war,
the territory of Pietrabbondante must have devolved
upon the municipium of Terventum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Vetter,
Handbuch der italischen Dialekte, I (1953) 149-55;
EAA 6 (1965) (A. La Regina)
with bibliography; id.,
Rhein. Museum Philol. 106 (1966)
260-86; id.,
Dialoghi di Archeologia 4-5 (1970-71); E. T.
Salmon,
Samnium and the Samnites (1967); H. Blanck,
AA (1970) 335-43; M. J. Strazzulla & B. di Marco,
Il
Santuario sannitico di Pietrabbondante (Soprintendenza
alle Antichità del Molise, 1971); M. Lejeune,
REL 50
(1972) 94-111; M. Matteini Chiari,
Quaderni dell'Istituto
di Topografia Antica dell'Università di Roma 6 (1974)
143-82.
A. LA REGINA
