PRE-COLONIAL LATIN COLONIES AND THE TRANSITION TO THE MID-REPUBLICAN PERIOD IN THE FALISCAN AREA AND SOUTH ETRURIA: ORIENTALIZING, ARCHAIC AND LATE ARCHAIC SETTLEMENT AND FUNERARY EVIDENCE FROM THE NEPI SURVEY

This paper discusses the survey evidence from the Orientalizing and Archaic settlement and funerary sites at Nepi (ancient Nepet), one of the first Latin colonies outside Latium adiectum. The comparison of its pre-Roman, pre-colonial developments to the Roman patterns from the Nepi Survey Project and the trends from other Latin colonies in southern Etruria allows the examination of the local effects of Roman colonialism. The evidence shows that Nepi seemed to develop as an independent city state in the Orientalizing period, peaked in the Archaic period and weakened before the capture of Veii in 396 bc , making it easier to defeat. Rural settlement all but disappeared afterwards with similar hiatus apparent at the sister colony at Sutri as well. In the third century bc the first few villas near the town appeared as a sign of the establishment of a Roman settlement pattern. The extensive ‘rural colonization’ at Nepi, similarly to Sutri and Cosa, started only in the second century bc when all southern Etruria had entered a colonial phase and could develop alongside Rome. Thus, Latin colonization disrupted earlier patterns and the colonies appear to have been originally outposts set up to secure new territory.