Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

structures. 848 The known institutions of the Cirtan colonies have adequate Roman
models.
6.7. Conclusions
Roman and Greek sources for the region do not support the view of a confederation
under the leadership of Nuceria Alfatema. The adjective Alfaterna was not used as an
ethnic to denote the population of the supposed confederation. It may have originally
been an ethnic, but in literary sources and on coins it qualified only the name of the town
of Nuceria. Furthermore, our literary evidence relates only to the city of Nuceria and not
to a larger political organization. Beloch's suggestion that the lack of reference to other
towns in the region implies their subordination to Nuceria does not seem to be well
founded.
Nuceria's leading economic role in the region as provider of coins for the
members of the confederation has also been rejected: the coins with the legend irnOii
may be cited as evidence that there could have been another community in the region to
produce coins. Nothing suggests that the coins showing the name
Nuceria Alfaterna
were minted for the use of more than a single city, perhaps to pay its own soldiers.
Beloch's claim that the members of the gens Sittia were of higher rank only within
the supposed confederation has been rejected. Furthermore, it has been also doubted, on
chronological and institutional grounds, that the confederation of Cirta imitated political
848 Senatore (2001) 237 rightly points out that there is a large chronological gap between the foundation of
the colony of Cirta and the reorganization of the region under the leadership of the tresviri. The foundation
of the colonies cannot be related to Sittius and therefore the constitution of the towns cannot be connected
to Nuceria.
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