CORA
(Cori a Valle) Latium, Italy.
About
32 km NE of Anzio, a center of Latin origin, which was
later occupied by the Volsci, sheltered a Latin colony
preceding the foedus Cassianum (
Livy 2.16). It is known
that it minted silver coins and that in 211 B.C. it was already a municipium (
Livy 26.7); however, it is not
known whether Livy referred to the jurisdictional condition of the city in his own lifetime. Cona apparently
later sided with Manius and was destroyed under Sulla
(Luc. 7392ff). Its later history is obscure.
The city developed on the W slopes of the Lepini
mountains overlooking the Pontine plain, and was connected with the major transit axes of the Via Appia. The
habitation area occupied a hill with steep and uneven
flanks varying in height from 250 m to 403 m above sea
level and isolated by two ditches. The urban plan is extremely irregular, and the network of streets, for the
most part sharply curving, is often supported by massive
terraces of polygonal masonry. Within the bounds of
the urban system, the acropolis may be identified with
the upper area, today called Cori a Monte, while the
actual habitation site occupied the rest, or what is now
Cori a Valle. The city had a circuit wall, at many places
still well preserved. Round towers in opus incertum were
added during the first half of the 1st c. B.C. Of particular
interest are the colossal foundations inside the urban
area, for example, in Via Ninfina, Via Pelasga, Piazza
Municipio, and those of the Doric Pozzo (well) and of
the Temple of Hercules.
The Temple of Castor and Pollux is on the Via delle
Colonne. Its scarce remains identify a temple on a high
podium built of squared blocks of tufa. It is a six-columned prostyle Corinthian temple, partly supported by
the slope of the hill. Two of the travertine columns on
the front are preserved in situ with the corresponding
architrave. Opening onto the pronaos was a cella divided into three naves by a double colonnade. It was
flanked by two alae, at the ends of which were two
small rooms. Two inscriptions pertaining to the monument (
CIL X, 6505, 6506) indicate the divinities to
whom it was dedicated and the magistrates under whom
it was constructed. They date the temple to the first
half of the 1st c. B.C.
On the summit of the hill, supported by massive
foundations, is the temple traditionally attributed to
Hercules. Dominating the horizon, the facade is fairly
well preserved. It is a tetrastyle pseudo-peripteral temple
in the Roman Doric order, with a deep pronaos. In the
cella there remains only the entrance with the elegant
moldings of the door. It was probably built in the 1st c.
B.C. Votive material found there, the earliest of which
dates to the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 3d c.
B.C., cannot be connected to the building period of the
temple. Outside the city were numerous villas, mostly
of the rustic type, and a fully developed network of roads.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S. Viola,
Memorie Istoriche dell'antichissima città di Cori (1825); A. Nibby,
Analisi storico
topografica della carta dei contorni di Roma, I (2d ed.,
1948), 487ff; A. Accrocca,
Cori, storia e monumenti
(1936);
EAA 2 (1959) s.v. Cori; P. Vittucci,
Cori,
Quaderni Ist. Topografia Antica Univ. Roma, II (1966)
13ff; G. Schmiedt,
Atlante aerofotografico delle sedi
umane in Italia, II (1970) 98f; G. A. Mansuelli,
Architettura e città (1970) 322.
For the Temple of Hercules. R. Delbrueck,
Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, II (1912) 29ff; A. Von Gerkan,
“Die Kruemmungen im Gebaelk des dorischen Tempels
in Cori,”
RömMitt 40 (1924) 167ff.
C. F. GIULIANI
