SERIES XXVI NOS. 9-10

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES

IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Under the Direction of the Departments of

History, Political Economy,

and Political Science

STUDY OF THE TOPOGRAPHY

AND MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF

PRÆNESTE

BY

RALPH VAN DEMAN MAGOFFIN, A.B.

Fellow in Latin.

September, October, 1908

COPYRIGHT 1908

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

This study is the first of a series of studies already in progress, in which the author hopes to make some contributions to the history of the towns of the early Latin League, from the topographical and epigraphical points of view.

The author takes this opportunity to thank Dr. Kirby Flower Smith, Head of the Department of Latin, at whose suggestion this study was begun, and under whose supervision and with whose hearty assistance its revision was completed.

He owes his warmest thanks also to Dr. Harry Langford Wilson, Professor of Roman Archæology and Epigraphy, with whom he made many trips to Præneste, and whose help and suggestions were most valuable.

Especially does he wish to testify to the inspiration to thoroughness which came from the teaching and the example of his dearly revered teacher, Professor Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Head of the Greek Department, and he acknowledges also with pleasure the benefit from the scholarly methods of Dr. David M. Robinson, and the manifold suggestiveness of the teaching of Dr. Maurice Bloomfield.

The cordial assistance of the author's aunt, Dr. Esther B. Van Deman, Carnegie Fellow in the American School at Rome, both during his stay in Rome and Præneste and since his return to America, has been invaluable, and the privilege afforded him by Professor Dr. Christian Hülsen, of the German Archæological Institute, of consulting the as yet unpublished indices of the sixth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, is acknowledged with deep gratitude.

The author is deeply grateful for the facilities afforded him in the prosecution of his investigations while he was a resident in Palestrina, and he takes great pleasure in thanking for their courtesies, Cav. Capitano Felice Cicerchia, President of the Archæological Society at Palestrina, his brother, Cav. Emilio Cicerchia, Government Inspector of Antiquities, Professor Pompeo Bernardini, Mayor of the City, and Cav. Francesco Coltellacci, Municipal Secretary.

Finally, he desires to express his cordial appreciation of the kind advice and generous assistance given by Professor John Martin Vincent in connection with the publication of this monograph.

A STUDY OF THE TOPOGRAPHY

AND MUNICIPAL

HISTORY OF PRÆNESTE.

CHAPTER I.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF PRÆNESTE.

Nearly a half mile out from the rugged Sabine mountains, standing clear from them, and directly in front of the sinuous little valley which the northernmost headstream of the Trerus made for itself, rises a conspicuous and commanding mountain, two thousand three hundred and eighteen feet above the level of the sea, and something more than half that height above the plain below. This limestone mountain, the modern Monte Glicestro, presents on the north a precipitous and unapproachable side to the Sabines, but turns a fairer face to the southern and western plain. From its conical summit the mountain stretches steeply down toward the southwest, dividing almost at once into two rounded slopes, one of which, the Colle di S. Martino, faces nearly west, the other in a direction a little west of south. On this latter slope is situated the modern Palestrina, which is built on the site of the