A Study of the Topography and Municipal History of PraenesteMagoffin, Ralph Van Deman
History
A Study of the Topography and Municipal History of Praeneste
Magoffin, Ralph Van Deman
Palestrina (Italy)
[Footnote 16: Fernique, Étude sur Préneste, p. 120, wishes to connect
Marcigliano and Ceciliano with the gentes Marcia and Caecilia, but it is
impossible to do more than guess, and the rather few names of these
gentes at Praeneste make the guess improbable. It is also impossible to
locate regio Caesariana mentioned as a possession of Praeneste by
Symmachus, Rel., XXVIII, 4, in the year 384 A.D. Eutropius II, 12 gets
some confirmation of his argument from the modern name Campo di Pirro
which still clings to the ridge west of Praeneste.]
[Footnote 17: The author himself saw all the excavations here along the
road during the year 1907, of which there is a full account in the Not.
d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 4 (1907), p. 19. Excavations began on these tombs in
1738, and have been carried on spasmodically ever since. There were
excavations again in 1825 (Marucchi, Guida Archeologica, p. 21), but it
was in 1855 that the more extensive excavations were made which caused
so much stir among archaeologists (Marucchi, l.c., p. 21, notes 1-7).
For the excavations see Bull, dell'Instituto. 1858, p. 93 ff., 1866, p.
133, 1869, p. 164, 1870, p. 97, 1883, p. 12; Not. d. Scavi, 2 (1877-78),
pp. 101, 157, 390, 10 (1882-83), p. 584; Revue Arch., XXXV (1878), p.
234; Plan of necropolis in Garucci, Dissertazioni Arch., plate XII.
Again in 1862 there were excavations of importance made in the Vigna
Velluti, to the right of the road to Marcigliano. It was thought that
the exact boundaries of the necropolis on the north and south had been
found because of the little columns of peperino 41 inches high by 8-8/10
inches square, which were in situ, and seemed to serve no other purpose
than that of sepulchral cippi or boundary stones. Garucci, Dissertazioni
Arch., I, p. 148; Archaeologia, 41 (1867), p. 190.]
[Footnote 18: C.I.L., XIV, 2987.]
[Footnote 19: The papal documents read sometimes in Latin, territorium
Praenestinum or Civitas Praenestina, but often the town itself is
mentioned in its changing nomenclature, Pellestrina, Pinestrino,
Penestre (Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. II; Nibby, Analisi, II, pp.
475, 483).]
[Footnote 20: There is nothing to show that Poli ever belonged in any
way to ancient Praeneste.]
[Footnote 21: Rather a variety of cappellaccio, according to my own
observations. See Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 5 (1897), p. 259.]
[Footnote 22: The temple in Cave is of the same tufa (Fernique, Étude
sur Préneste, p. 104). The quarries down toward Gallicano supplied tufa
of the same texture, but the quarries are too small to have supplied
much. But this tufa from the ridge back of the town seems not to have
been used in Gallicano to any great extent, for the tufa there is of a
different kind and comes from the different cuts in the ridges on either
side of the town, and from a quarry just west of the town across the
valley.]
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