https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111189635-019 Barbara Borgers and Francesca Diosono 19 A True Melting Pot: The Production of Cooking Ware at Fregellae, Southern Lazio (Italy), between the 4 th and the 2 nd Centuries B.C. Abstract: The Latin colony of Fregellae was one of the largest in the Middle and Late Republican periods and a cornerstone of Rome’s political dominion in southern Latium. In this important city lived many people from other territories, especially Italians such as Samnites and Peligni but also Carthaginians as well as people probably from Greece and Magna Graecia. The multiculturalism of Fregellae is also reflected in its domestic contexts, as shown in this chapter, focusing on the production and use of cooking ware. The results indicate that cooking ware was produced locally, incorporating typical forms of several culinary cultures rather than from the Roman-Latin tradition only. However, it was also this influx of new inhabitants that led to the destruction of the city, following from their revolt against Rome to request the extension of citizenship rights. Introduction Fregellae was founded as a Latin colony in 328 B.C. in hostile territory disputed between the Samnites and the Volscians. The town fulfilled its obligations to Rome during the Second Punic War, but it was besieged and destroyed in 125 B.C. by the Romans because of its citizens’ claim to the rights for Roman citizenship. Uncontaminated by later settlement, Fregellae is considered a unicum for the study of Roman archaeology dated between the Middle and the Late Republican eras. Located in a fertile and well-connected territory, with a wealthy local aristocracy proud of its military and political alliance with Rome, Fregellae was a large and flourishing city; situated in Latium Adiectum in a strategic position along the Via Latina, trade occurred both by land and by water along the route connecting Rome to Capua and from the Sacco and Liri River valleys to the port at Minturnae on the Tyrrhenian coast. Imported goods arrived from neighboring areas as well as from Sicily, the Punic area, and the Aegean Sea.1 Studies have led to the hypothesis that most of the ceramic objects found in Fregellae were produced locally, based on the following arguments: the area is rich in good-quality clay; coarse ware, ceramic building material, and opus doliare seem to display a similar composition; a pottery kiln and pottery waste, dated between the 3 rd and 2 nd centuries B.C., were found during archaeological surveys and excavations.2 This chapter examines the composition of coarse cooking ware dated to the Middle and Late Republican eras, with the aims of testing the hypothesis and understanding the town’s posi- tion within local production networks at that time. Background The University of Perugia has carried out excavations at Fregellae since 1978, under the direction of F. Coarelli. Several public buildings have been found, including three temples, the Forum, the Comitium, the Curia, and the public baths (Fig. 1).3 In addition, two areas with domestic properties were excavated in the town;4 in one of these areas, located east of 1 Diosono (2008); Diosono et al. (2019). 2 Crawford/Keppie/Vercnocke (1985) 94. 3 Coarelli 1986; Coarelli/Monti (1998); Tsiolis (2013); Battaglini/Coarelli/Diosono (2019); Diosono (2023). 4 Battaglini/Diosono (2010), Battaglini/Braconi (2019). Note: We would like to thank the Austrian Science Fund (through the FWF project T-1085 G) for their financial support of this research, and the members of the organizing committee, including Diego Elia, Eleni Hasaki, and Marco Serino, for the opportunity to present our research at the stimulating confer- ence entitled “Technology, Crafting and Artisanal Networks in the Greek and Roman World: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ceramics.” We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on a previous version of this article, and the team of pottery specialists from Fregellae and Dr. Carlo Molle from SABAP Frosinone e Latina for the permission to analyze the ceramic samples in thin-section petrography.