Bantia
- a town of Apulia, in the vicinity of Venusia, on the southern declivity of the mountain, now Banzi, Liv. 27, 25, 13.
- —Hence, Bantīnus, a, um, adj., of or pertaining to Bantia: saltus, Hor. C. 3, 4, 15.
- —Bantīni, ōrum, m., the inhabitants of Bantia, Plin. 3, 11, 15, § 98.
BA´NTIA (Βαντία: Eth. Bantinus), a small town about 13 miles SE. of Venusia. Pliny reckons the Bantini among the Lucanians; but Livy speaks of it as in Apulia, and Acron, in his notes on Horace, also calls it expressly civitas Apuliae.H orace himself alludes to it as one of the places, in the neighbourhood of Venusia, familiar to his boyhood; and his expressions indicate the wooded character of its territory. (Saltus Bantinos, Hor. Carm. 3.4, 15; Plin. Nat. 3.11. s. 16; Liv. 27.25; Acron, ad loc.) An ancient abbey, named Sta. Maria di Banzi, still marks its site, and Holstenius (Not. in Cluver, p. 202) tells as that in his time some remains of the ancient town were visible in its immediate neighbourhood. The district is still covered with a thick forest, now called Bosco dell' Abadia. (Romanelli, vol. 2. p. 241.) It was among the wooded hills between Bantia and Venusia that the Roman consuls M. Marcellus and T. Quinctius Crispinus encamped in B.C. 208, and where the skirmish took place in which Marcellus was killed, and his colleague mortally wounded. (Liv. 27.25--27.) We learn from inscriptions that Bantia enjoyed the rights of a Municipium under the Roman Empire; and one of the most interesting monuments of its class is a bronze tablet, commonly known as the Tabula Bantina, which was discovered in the year 1790, at Oppido, 8 miles from Banzi. This contains a Roman law, or plebis-scitum, relative to the municipal affairs of Bantia, and derives its chief interest from the circumstance that it is written both in Latin and Oscan, of which last language it is one of the most important relics. (Mommsen, Unter Italischen Dialekte, p. 145--168; Bullett. dell Inst. Arch. 1847, p. 157.)
[E.H.B]BA´NTIA (Βαντία), a town of the Calicoeni, in the district of Dassaretia in Illyria. (Plb. 5.108.)
The modern Banzi; a town in Apulia near Venusia. Here was found the famous bronze tablet known as the Tabula Bantina (q. v.), containing an important fragment of the Oscan language. See Osci.
A native settlement that developed in iron Age I on a spur which commands the valley of a tributary of the Bradano river. The most numerous traces of a settlement and of the necropolis have been discovered in Via Dante and its vicinity. The pottery is Daunian, strongly influenced by Greek imports. A larger settlement, covering the entire spur, dates to the 4th c. B.C. and there are traces of life in the second half of the 5th c. B.C.
Contrary to what has occurred elsewhere, the settlement flourished during the 3d c. and the 2d c. B.C. it was similar culturally to Greek coastal centers. in the first half of the 1st c. B.C., the settlement, by this time under Roman domination, became a municipium. its administrative systems are well known from the Tabula Bantina. A study of the last fragment of the Tabula, discovered in 1967, makes clear that it was drawn up in Latin and translated into Oscan at Rome by someone not completely familiar with the Oscan language.
The construction of the auguraculum must have started when the municipium was founded, as various fragmentary inscriptions from the monument and the archaeological materials connected with it attest. in the middle of the 1st c. B.C., the municipium received a building for the duoviri (CIL XI, 418). it is clear from documents found during recent excavations that the life of the municipium extended to the Christian era. A great part of the Roman settlement now lies beneath the countryside. The only area uncovered is that which extends along the S side of the spur.
BIBLIOGRAPHYCIL IX, p. 43 n. 416; A. Lombardi, “Topografia ed avanzi d'antiche città nella Basilicata,” Mem. Ist. Corr. Arch. 1 (1832) 218; Diz. Epigr., IV, 715ff; E. Vetter, Handbuch d. Ital. Dialekte, I (1953) 14ff; M. W. Frederiksen, JRS 55 (1965) 186ff; C. Nicolet, L'ordre équestre à l'époque républicaine (1966) 557ff; M. Torelli, RendLinc 8, 21 (1966) 293ff; D. Adamesteanu & M. Torelli, ArchCl 21 (1969) 1-17.
D. ADAMESTEANU