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AEQUI

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 259 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AEQUI , an See also:

ancient See also:people of See also:Italy, whose name occurs constantly in See also:Livy's first See also:decade as hostile to See also:Rome in the first three centuries of the See also:city's existence. They occupied the upper reaches of the valleys of the Anio, Tolenus and Himella; the last two being See also:mountain streams See also:running northward 'to join the Nar. Their See also:chief centre is said to have been taken by the See also:Romans about 484 B.C. (Diodorus xi. 40) and again about ninety years later (id. xiv. 1o6), but they were not finally subdued till the end of the second Samnite See also:war (Livy ix. 45, rX. 1; Diod. xx. 'or), when they seem to have received a limited See also:form of See also:franchise (Cic. Off. i. 1 r, 35). All we know of their subsequent See also:political See also:condition is that after the Social war the folk of Cliternia and Nersae appear See also:united in a res publica Aequiculorum, which was a See also:municipium of the See also:ordinary type (C.I.L. ix. p.

388). The Latin colonies of See also:

Alba Fucens (304 B.C.) and See also:Carsioli (298 B.C.) must have spread the use of Latin (or what passed as such) all over the See also:district; through it See also:lay the chief (and for some See also:time the only) route (Via See also:Valeria) to Luceria and the See also:south. Of the See also:language spoken by the Aequi before the See also:Roman See also:con-quest we have no See also:record; but since the See also:Marsi (q.v.), who lived farther See also:east, spoke in the 3rd See also:century B.C. a See also:dialect closely akin to Latin, and since the See also:Hernici (q.v.), their neighbours to the south-See also:west, did the same, we have no ground for separating any of these tribes from the Latian See also:group (see See also:LATINI). If we could be certain of the origin of the q in their name and of the relation between its shorter and its longer form (See also:note that the i in Aequiculus is long—Virgil, Aen. vii. 744—which seems to connect it with the locative of aequum " a See also:plain," so that it would mean " dwellers in the plain "; but in the See also:historical See also:period they certainly lived mainly in the hills), we should know whether they were to be grouped with the q or the p dialects, that is to say, with Latin on the one See also:hand, which preserved an See also:original q, or with the dialect of Velitrae, commonly called Volscian (and, the See also:Volsci were the See also:constant See also:allies of the Aequi), on the other hand, in which, as in the Iguvine and Samnite dialects, an original q is changed into p. There is no decisive See also:evidence to show whether the q in Latin aequus represents an Indo-See also:European q as in Latin quis, Umbro-Volsc. pis, or an Indo-European k + u as in equus, See also:limb. ekvo-. The derivative See also:adjective Aequicus might be taken to range them with the Volsci rather than the See also:Sabini, but it is not clear that this adjective was ever used as a real ethnicon; the name of the tribe is always Aequi, or Aequicoli. At the end of the Republican period the Aequi appear, under the name Aequiculi or Aequicoli, organized as a municipium, the territory of which seems to have comprised the upper See also:part of the valley of the See also:Salto, still known as Cicolano. It is probable, however, that they continued to live in their villages as before. Of these Nersae (mod. Nesee) was the most considerable. The polygonal See also:terrace walls, which exist in considerable See also:numbers in the district, are shortly described in Romische Mitteilungen (1903), 147 seq., but require further study.

See further the articles MARSI, VOLSCI, LATINI, and the references there given; the See also:

place-names and other scanty records of the dialect are collected by R. S. See also:Conway, The See also:Italic Dialects, pp. 300 if. (R. S.

End of Article: AEQUI

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