substructions of masonry and connected with each other by grand staircases, rose one above the other on the hill in the form of the side of a pyramid, crowned on the highest terrace by the round temple of Fortune. This immense edifice, probably by far the largest sanctuary in Italy, must have presented a most imposing aspect, visible as it was from a great part of Latium, from Rome, and even from the sea. The ground at the foot of the lowest terrace is 1476 ft. above sea-level; here is a. cistern, divided into ten large chambers, in brick-faced concrete. The goddess Fortuna here went by the name of Primigenia (First-Born, but perhaps in an active sense First-Bearer); she was represented suckling two babes, said to be ]upiter and ]uno, and she was especially worshipped by matrons. The oracle continued to be consulted down to Christian times, until Constantine, and again later Theodosius, forbade the practice and closed the temple. A bishop of Praeneste is first mentioned in A.D. 313. In 1297 the Colonna family, who then owned Praeneste (Palestrina), revolted from the pope, but in the following year the town was taken and razed to the ground. In 1437 the city, which had been rebuilt, was captured by the papal general Cardinal Vitelleschi and once more utterly destroyed. It was rebuilt and fortified by Stefano Colonna in 1448. In 1630 it passed by purchase into the Barberini family. Praeneste was the native town of Aelian, and in modern times of the great composer (Giovanni) Pierluigi da Palestrina.
The modern town of Palestrina, a collection of narrow and filthy alleys, stands on the terraces once occupied by the temple of Fortune. On the summit of the hill (2471 ft.), nearly a mile from the town, stood the ancient citadel, the site of which is now occupied by a few poor houses (Castel San Pietro) and a ruined medieval castle of the Colonna. The magnificent view embraces Soracte, Rome, the Alban Hills and the Campagna as far as the sea. Considerable portions of the southern wall of the ancient citadel, built in very massive Cyclopean masonry of blocks of limestone, are still to be seen; and the two walls, also polygonal, which formerly united the citadel with the town, can still be traced. The ruins of the villa attributed to Hadrian stand in the plain near the church of S. Maria della Villa, about three-quarters of a mile from the town. Here was discovered the Braschi Antinoüs, now in the Vatican. The calendar, which, as Suetonius tells us, was set up by the grammarian, M. Verrius Flaccus in the forum of Praeneste (the reference being to the forum of the imperial period, at the Madonna dell’ Aquila), was discovered in the ruins of the church of S. Agapitus in 1771, where it has been used as building material (C. Hülsen in Corp inscr. lat. 2nd ed. i. 230). Excavations made, especially since 1855, in the ancient necropolis, which lay on a plateau surrounded by valleys at the foot of the hill, and of the town, have yielded important results for the history of the art and manufactures of Praeneste. Of the objects found in the oldest graves, and supposed to date from about the 7th century B.C., the cups of silver and silver-gilt and most of the gold and amber jewelry are Phoenician (possibly Carthaginian), or at least made on Phoenician models; but the bronzes and some of the ivory articles seem to be Etruscan. No objects have been discovered belonging to the period intermediate between the 7th and 3rd centuries B.C.; but “ from about 250 B.C. onwards we have a series of Praenestine graves surmounted by the characteristic ‘pine-apple’ of local stone, containing stone coffms with rich bronze, ivory and gold ornaments beside the skeleton. From these come the bronze cislae and specula with partly (but far from wholly) Etruscan inscriptions, for which Praeneste is renowned ” (Conway, Ital. Dial.). Among these is the famous Ficoroni casket, engraved with pictures of the arrival of the Argonauts in Bithynia and the victory of Pollux over Amycus. It was found in 1738. “ The caskets are unique in Italy, but a large number of mirrors of precisely similar style have been discovered in Etruria and are published in full by the German Archaeological School at Rome: Etruskische Spiegeln, vol. v. sqq. (Berlin, 1884). Hence, although a priori it would be reasonable to conjecture that objects with Etruscan characteristics came from Etruria, the evidence, positive and negative, points decisively to an Etruscan factory in or near Praeneste itself ” (Conway, ibid.). Most of the objects discovered in the necropolis are preserved in the Roman collections, especially in the Kircherian Museum (which possesses the Ficoroni casket) and the Barberini library.
See E. Fernique, Préneste (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises, fasc. 17, Paris, 1880); H. Dessau in Corp. inscr. lat. xiv. 288 sqq., Corp. inscr. etrusc. vol. ii.; O. Marucchi, Guida archeologica dell' antica Preneste (Rome, 1885), and in Bullettino comunale (1904), 233 sqq.; R. S. Conway, Italic Dialects, i. 311 sqq. (Cambridge, 1897); T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, i. 132 sqq.; R. Delbrück, Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, p. 47 sqq. (Berlin,1907); Notizie degli Scavi, passim; and especially D. Vaglieri (1907), p. 132, &c.; R. van Deman Magoffin, Topography and Municipal History of Praeneste (Johns Hopkins University Studies, xxvi. 9, 10); Baltimore, 1908). (J. G. Fr.; R. S. C; T. As.)
PRAENESTINA, VIA, an ancient road of Italy, leading from Rome E. by S. to Praeneste, a distance of 23 m., Gabii being
situated almost exactly half-way. At the ninth mile the road
crosses a ravine by the well-preserved and lofty Ponte di Nona,
with seven arches, the finest ancient bridge in the neighbourhood
of Rome. The line of the road is, considering the
difficulty of the country beyond Gabii, very straight. In
the stretch beyond Gabii it is only used as a track, and well
preserved. Half-way between Gabii and Praeneste is the
well-preserved single-arched bridge, known as Ponte Amato.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, i. 149 sqq.
(T. As.)
PRAETOR (Lat. prae-itor, “ he who goes before,” “ a leader”), originally a military title, was in classical times the designation
of the highest magistrates in the Latin towns. The Roman
consuls were at first called praetors; in the early code of the
Twelve Tables (450 B.C.) they appear to have had no other title.
By the Licinian law of 367, which abolished the military
tribunes with consular power and enacted that the supreme
executive should henceforward be in the hands of the two consuls,
a new magistrate was at the same time created who was to be a
colleague of the consuls, though with lower rank and lesser
powers. This new magistrate was entrusted with the exclusive
jurisdiction in civil cases; in other respects his powers resembled
those of the consuls. His distinctive title was the city praetor
(praetor urbarnus), and in after time, when the number of praetors
was increased, the city praetor always ranked first. To this new
magistrate the title of “ praetor ” was thenceforward properly
restricted.[1] About 242 the increase of a foreign population
in Rome necessitated the creation of a second praetor for the
decision of suits between foreigners (peregrini) or between
citizens and foreigners. This praetor was known at a later time
as the “ foreign praetor ” (praetor peregrinus).[2] About 227 two
more praetors were added to administer the recently acquired
provinces of Sicily and Sardinia. The conquest of Spain
occasioned the appointment of two more in 197, of whom one
governed Hither and the other Further Spain. The number
of praetors, thus augmented to six, remained stationary till
Sulla's time (82). But in the interval their duties vastly
multiplied. On the one hand, five new provinces were added
to the Roman dominions—Macedonia and Achaia in 146, Africa
in the same year, Asia in 134, Gallia Narbonensis in 118, Cilicia
probably in 102. On the other hand, new and permanent jury
courts (quaestiones perpetuae) were instituted at Rome, over which
the praetors were called on to preside. To meet this increase of business the tenure of office of the praetors and also of the consuls was practically prolonged from one to two years, with the distinction that in their second year of office they bore the titles of pro praetor and proconsul instead of praetor and consul. The prolongation of office, together with the participation of the proconsuls in duties which properly fell to the praetors, formed the basis of Sulla's arrangements. He increased the number of the praetors from six to eight, and ordained that henceforward all the eight should in their first year administer justice at Rome and in their second should as pro praetors undertake the government of provinces. The courts over which the praetors presided, in addition to those of the city praetor and the foreign praetor, dealt with the following offences: oppression of the provincials by governors (repetundarum), bribery (ambitus), embezzlement (peculatus), treason (majestatis), murder (de sicariis et veneficis), and probably forgery (falsi). A tenth province
- ↑ Some writers, following Livy vi. 42, assert that at first the praetor ship was open to patricians only, but Mommsen (Röm. Staatsrecht ii. 195 [204] shows that this is probably a mistake. The election of a plebeian to the office for the first time in 337 was certainly opposed by the consul who presided at the election, but there appears to have been no legal obstacle to it.
- ↑ [His official title in republican times was Praetor qui inter peregrinos jus dicit, under the empire Praetor qui inter cives peregrinos jus dicit, until the time of Vespasian, when the abbreviated title praetor peregrinus came into use.]
