Un donario fittile con elefanti e Cerbero dal santuario di Portonaccio a Veio

During Veii's excavations in 1945-46, M. Santangelo found, in the area of Portonaccio's shrine, a little donarium located in a cistern. On it, we can reconstruct elephants in association with Cerbero's figure, with a probable connection with chthonian cults. It is also possible, however, to suppose that this object, whose subject is so unusual, would refer to an historical event: in fact we know that, during the battle of Benevento against Pirro and his elephants, a little elephant was wounded, and, moreover, four captured elephants were parading in Rome in 275 BC. So, we could imagine that a soldier serving in M. Curio Dentato army, maybe from Veii, would have offered this peculiar object (an unicum with no comparisons) as a souvenir of that war, when Roman people saw elephants for the first time.