The Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia was one of the most impressive late-Republican complexes in Roman Italy, and its monumental structure still dominates the center of the Palestrina, the ancient city of Praeneste, located 20 miles southeast of Rome. Praeneste was a powerful Latin city that fought against the Romans and was only defeated in the 4th century BCE. It was integrated at the time of the civil wars between Marius and Sulla in the first century BCE.
It was especially renowned in the ancient world for its monumental complex built on different levels of the slopes of Monte Ginestro. The Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia (roughly translating to “Fortuna the First-Born” or “Primordial”) was most likely built at the end of the second century BCE on the site of an oracular cult that is even described by Cicero.
