Consilinum
- a fortified town in Bruttium, Plin. 3, 10, 15, § 95.—Hence, adj.:
CONSILI´NUM or COSILL´NUM, a town of Lucania, mentioned only in the Liber Coloniarum, which enumerates it among the Praefecturae of that province (p. 209), and by Cassiodorus (Varr. 8.33), who calls it antiquissima civitas.W e learn from the latter that a great. fair was held every year in a suburb of the town, to which he gives the name of Marcilianum. This is in all probability the same place called in the Itinerary Marcelliana (Itin. Ant. p. 110), and a local antiquary has pointed out a spot still called Marciliana, between La Sala and Padula, in the valley of the Tanagro, where there is a remarkable fountain, corresponding to one mentioned by Cassiodorus. The situation of Consilinum is said to be indicated by some ruins on a hill near Padula. (Romanelli, vol. i. pp. 405--409.)
[E.H.B]A center in ancient Lucania renowned for its economic and commercial importance. In the Liber regionum (p. 209), the territory dependent on that municipium is in fact indicated, with mention of the praefectura Consiline. Cassiodorus (Var. 8.33) records a great annual fair, with the participation of people from all the surrounding regions, held in a pleasant spot in the valley, “suburbanus quondam Consilinatis antiquissimae civitatis.”
From the ancient center there are inscriptions and monumental remains, found under the modern city and on the hill known as la Civita to the SE, both on a height dominating the fertile valley of the Tanagro. Situated between the valley of the Agri, open to commerce with Metapontum, with Sin, and with Heraklea on the Ionian Sea, and the valley of the Bussento, at whose mouth was the landing place of Pixous, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, it was an important inland market of Magna Graecia.
The material found so far includes more than 13,000 objects from 1300 tombs, specifically from the archaic, Enotrian, Graeco-Italic, and Lucanian necropoleis between Padula and Sala Consilina. The finds are housed in the large new Museo Archeologico della Lucania Occidentale, instituted by the Province of Salerno in the monumental Certosa of S. Lorenzo.
The funerary material from the Enotrio-Italic tombs, containing both inhumation and cremation burials, includes Protogeometric pottery; ornamental and votive objects in amber, bronze, and iron; and impasto pottery with characteristic decoration showing Graeco-Oriental archaic influence. Tombs from the Ionic period (7th-5th c. B.C.), all contain inhumation burials and rich gifts, among which are rare examples of Geometric vases with original polychrome decoration. There is also material from the Graeco-Italic tombs of the 6th and 5th c. B.C., containing examples of Greek figured ceramics, and vases and other objects in bronze. Finds from the Lucanian tombs of the 4th-2d c. B.C. include local redfigured ceramics.
The Hellenistic and Roman material includes antefixes with protomes of Maenads and Silens, and composite figured capitals. There are also several characteristic sepulchral portraits.
BIBLIOGRAPHYApollo, Bollettino dei Musei Provinciali del Salernitano (July 1961ff); J. de la Genière, Recherches sur l'âge du fer en Italie méridionale Sala Consilina (1968) MPI; V. Bracco, RendLinc (1969) 238ff; K. Kilian, Früheisenzeitliche Funde aus der südestnecropole von Sala Consilina (1970).
V. PANEBIANCO