CONSILINUM
(Padula) Campania, Italy.
A center in ancient Lucania renowned for its economic
and commercial importance. In the
Liber regionum (p.
209), the territory dependent on that municipium is in
fact indicated, with mention of the praefectura Consiline. Cassiodorus (
Var. 8.33) records a great annual
fair, with the participation of people from all the surrounding regions, held in a pleasant spot in the valley,
“suburbanus quondam Consilinatis antiquissimae civitatis.”
From the ancient center there are inscriptions and
monumental remains, found under the modern city and
on the hill known as la Civita to the SE, both on a height
dominating the fertile valley of the Tanagro. Situated between the valley of the Agri, open to commerce with
Metapontum, with Sin, and with Heraklea on the
Ionian Sea, and the valley of the Bussento, at whose
mouth was the landing place of Pixous, on the Tyrrhenian
Sea, it was an important inland market of Magna Graecia.
The material found so far includes more than 13,000
objects from 1300 tombs, specifically from the archaic,
Enotrian, Graeco-Italic, and Lucanian necropoleis between Padula and Sala Consilina. The finds are housed in the large new Museo Archeologico della Lucania Occidentale, instituted by the Province of Salerno in the
monumental Certosa of S. Lorenzo.
The funerary material from the Enotrio-Italic tombs,
containing both inhumation and cremation burials, includes Protogeometric pottery; ornamental and votive
objects in amber, bronze, and iron; and impasto pottery
with characteristic decoration showing Graeco-Oriental
archaic influence. Tombs from the Ionic period (7th-5th
c. B.C.), all contain inhumation burials and rich gifts,
among which are rare examples of Geometric vases with
original polychrome decoration. There is also material
from the Graeco-Italic tombs of the 6th and 5th c. B.C.,
containing examples of Greek figured ceramics, and
vases and other objects in bronze. Finds from the Lucanian tombs of the 4th-2d c. B.C. include local redfigured ceramics.
The Hellenistic and Roman material includes antefixes
with protomes of Maenads and Silens, and composite figured capitals. There are also several characteristic sepulchral portraits.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Apollo, Bollettino dei Musei Provinciali del Salernitano (July 1961ff); J. de la Genière,
Recherches sur l'âge du fer en Italie méridionale Sala Consilina (1968)
MPI; V. Bracco,
RendLinc (1969) 238ff; K. Kilian,
Früheisenzeitliche Funde aus der südestnecropole von Sala Consilina (1970).
V. PANEBIANCO
