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Civitalba stands on a hill about six kilometres north-east of Sassoferrato, formerly named Sentinum, near Ancona. Excavated in the late-1800s, the site is known for being the place where the remains of the terracotta decorations of a temple were unearthed.
The frontal section probably shows the god Dionysus appearing on Mount Parnassus, while the frieze on display here is a symbolical account of the victory of Rome over the Celts. Scant excavation reports from the time suggest that the two figurative cycles were part of a votive deposit. They probably date from the middle of the first half of the Second Century BCE.
The actual building from which they were taken has never been identified but it could have been a commemorative structure erected over a century after the so-called “Battle of the Nations”. Not far from Civitalba, in 295 BCE Rome had defeated a coalition of Samnites, Gauls, Etruscans and Umbrians, an episode which proved to be a turning point in the third Samnite war and in the Roman conquest of the Italian peninsula.