ANTINUM. NAISSANCE ET DÉCADENCE D’UN MUNICIPE ROMAIN MINEUR DE L’ITALIE CENTRALE

Abstract

Antinum. Rise and fall of a minor Roman municipium of central Italy

The author scrutinizes the urban and civic development of Antinum, a small community of the ancient Marsi, from pre-Roman times to Late Antiquity. This sample is of great interest, because: 1) Antinum is a municipium issued from a preceding oppidum on a hill, not from a village on the plain; 2) its institutes are epigraphically documented already before the establishment of the municipium; 3) since the 3rd century B.C. several unfortified villages (vici) were present in its territory. The study of the over time relation between the urban centre and these vici (both before and after the establishment of the municipium) allows us to test the well-known ‘vican-paganic’ model of settlement, a model which has been for long considered as typical of inland central Italy since pre-Roman times. As a matter of fact, the objections against this model recently raised by Capogrossi Colognesi, Tarpin and others seem, at least in this specific case, fully confirmed.