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

The role of sanctuaries in peasant societies has been studied in great depth.
They seem not only to have been meeting spots, places to exchange information,
where trade was carried out under of the eye of the divinity of the temple, but they
also served as museums of collective memory and the history of those who
celebrated the cult. Numerous war spoils have been found around temples A and B of
Pietrabbondante, all of which date from the fifth to third centuries BC. They include
helmets of Tarentine and Roman (Montefortino) style which attest whom the
Samnites had been fighting. They were probably moved from the previous temples of
the sanctuary.
213 We also have an inscription set up in honour of the goddess
Victoria. 214 The architectural connections which bound Samnium to the rest of the
Italian peninsula must be also considered here. The theatre at Pietrabbondante has its
closest parallel in the Great Theatre of Pompeii before the Sullan reconstructions
while the typology of the older temple recalls that of the altar found at fondo
Patturelli near Capua. 215 The pavements of small red stones in the smaller temple of
Schiavi d'Abruzzo and S. Giovanni in Galdo recall those in private houses of
Campania. 216 The scenographic placing of the temple of Campochiaro and that of
Pietrabbondante suggests their builders were acquainted with the architectural culture
of Asia Minor. It is striking that the plans and decor do not imitate Roman forms,
whether for political or aesthetic reasons.
The importance of the sanctuary at Pietrabbondante to the independent identity
of the Pentri is also confirmed by the fact that its use came to an abrupt end with the
Social War. The construction of Temple B and the theatre was never finished and the
212
La Regina (1976) 237-8.
213 Cianfarani, Franchi dell'Orto La Regina (1978) tab. 305-6-7
214 ST Sa 24.
215 La Regina (1965) under the word Pietrabbondante.
64