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SABINI

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 966 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SABINI , an See also:

ancient tribe of See also:Italy, which was more closely in See also:touch with the See also:Romans from the earliest recorded 'See also:period than any other See also:Italic See also:people. They dwelt in the mountainous See also:country See also:east of the See also:Tiber, and See also:north of the districts inhabited, by the Latins and the Aequians in the See also:heart, of the Central See also:Apennines. Their boundary, between the See also:southern portion of the Umbrians on the north-See also:west, and of the Picentines on the north-east, was probably not very closely determined. The traditions connect them closely with the beginning of See also:Rome, and with a large number of its See also:early institutions, such as the See also:worship of See also:Jupiter, See also:Mars and See also:Quirinus, and the patrician See also:form of See also:marriage (confarreatio). Of their See also:language as distinct from that of the Latins no articulate memorial has survived, but we have a large number of single words attributed to them by Latin writers, among which such forms as (I) firms, See also:Lat. hircus; (2) ausum, Lat. aurum; (3) nouensides, Lat. nouensides (" gods of the nine seats "); (4) the See also:river name Farfarus, beside pure Lat. Fabaris (Servius, ad Aen. vii. 715); and (5) the traditional name of the See also:Sabine See also:king, Numa See also:Pont pilius (contrasted with Lat. Quinctilius), indicate clearly certain peculiarities in Sabine phonology: namely, (1) the See also:representation of the Indo-See also:European palatal aspirate gh by f instead of Lat. h; (2) the retention of s between vowels; (3) the See also:change of medial and initial d to l; (4) the retention of medial f which became in Latin b or d; and (5) the change of Ind.-Eur. q to p. Not less clear is the well attested tradition (e.g. See also:Paul ex Fest. 327 M.) that the Sabines were the See also:parent stock of the See also:Samnites, and this is directly confirmed by the name which the Samnites apparently used for themselves, which, with a Latinized ending, would be Sabni (see SAMNITES and the other articles there cited, dealing with the See also:minor Samnite tribes). It is one of the most important problems in ancient See also:history to determine what was the ethnological relation of these tribes, whom we may See also:call " Safine," to the people of Rome on the one See also:hand, and the earlier stratum or strata of See also:population in Italy on the other.

Much See also:

light has been thrown on this See also:group of questions in See also:recent years both from linguistic and from archaeological See also:sources. For the See also:historical and archaeological See also:evidence which connects the Sabines with the See also:patricians of Rome, see RoME, Ancient History. The linguistic See also:side of the See also:matter may be conveniently dealt with here. From this point of view the question to be asked is what language did the Safines speak? Was it most nearly akin to Latin or to Oscan or again to Umbrian and Volscian? A single See also:monument of 5th- or 4th-See also:century Safine would be of unique value; but in the See also:absence of any such See also:direct evidence we are thrown back on a few See also:cardinal facts: (I) See also:Festus, though he continually cites the Lingua Osca never spoke of Lingua Sabina, but simply of Sabini, and the same is practically true of See also:Varro, who never refers to the language of the Sabines as a living speech, though he does imply (v. 66 and 74) that the See also:dialect used in the See also:district differed somewhat from See also:urban Latin. The speech therefore of the Sabines by Varro's See also:time had become too Latinized to give us more than scanty indications of what it had once been.(2) The language of the Samnites was that which we now call Oscan (see O5cA LINGUA). (3) The evidence of the glosses and See also:place-names already referred to confirms tradition by the resemblance which they show to the phonological characteristics of Oscan. On the other hand there are two or three forms called Sabine by Latin writers which' do appear to 'show the See also:sound y unchanged, especially the name of the Sabine See also:god Quirinus, which seems to be at least indirectly connected with the name of the Sabine See also:town See also:Cures. We do not, however, know that the initial sound of this word was originally a Velar q, and See also:Professor See also:Ridge-way (" Who were the Romans," See also:London, 1908, in Proceedings of the See also:British See also:Academy, iii. 19) rightly See also:lays some stress on the fact that the name in See also:Greek form is simply Kupvos (not Koepivos: whereas Lat.

See also:

Quintus is , regularly transcribed KolY7os), and suggests that the initial sound may have been slightly modified so as to correspond with the pure Latin wordquiriles (spearmen). In one or two other examples of an apparent q in Safine names or glosses it is not difficult to show that the sound was originally a pure palatal followed by a suffixal tit (e.g: tesc~ua, "See also:desert places," probably for *See also:tern-c-ua, cf. pas-crua, and Greek repva-fseiv, ,Lat. terra, " dry See also:land," from tersd):, so that they would in fact offer no difficulty. There is further an important piece of evidence which connects together' all the Safine tribes' and distinguishes them sharply, at least in the 5th and following centuries n.c., from the earlier strata of population in Italy. As this point'arises in connexion with so many tribes it is desirable to offer the evidence for it here once for all. It rests upon the different See also:character of the suffixes used by particular tribes and comtnbnities to form their ethnic See also:Dialectic See also:Area. -IO-. -CO-. -NO-. -TI-.. -ENSI-. Totals.. See also:Messapii t6 ..

2 20- Peucetii . 1 15 3 19 Daunii . I 8 3 2 14 See also:

Bruttii . . . 2 . . I I 2 4 19 Lucani 2 .. 13 3 2 20 See also:Hirpini .. 33 2 36, See also:Frentani . . . 4 4 2 lo Samnites . i (1) 5 4 3 13 , Campani . . . 3 (1) 43 5 3 54 See also:Aurunci I (1) 2 1 $ See also:Volsci ..

I 29 10 I 42 See also:

Hernici I I 3 2 6 See also:Marsi I .. 3 4 I 9 See also:Aequi . . . .. .. 6 2 .. 9 See also:Latini 4 4 44 8 20 77. l (2) Early Rome . 2 .. 19 6 ,27 Sabini . . . ..

13 4 2 19 See also:

Etruria (including 5 2 34 9 20 70 the See also:Falisci) See also:Marrucini I (i) 2 I .. 4 See also:Paeligni . . .. 5 2 7 See also:Vestini . . .. 8 4 2 14 Piceni . .. .. (I) 15 5 14 34 Umbri . . .. .. 23 35 15, 73.

Totals 27 7 354 Io6 107 _ 601 (7) The figures in brackets refer to the forms in -CINO- ; see below. 3. The names in -le- seem to have been evenly distributed over the See also:

Italian area and not to See also:mark any particular tribe or See also:epoch. 4. The suffix-ensi-can be shown to have See also:borne a See also:political significance, 1 This statement with those which follow is based upon.: the collections of the place-names of ancient Italy, arranged according to their locality, by R. S. See also:Conway in The Italic Dialects (See also:Cambridge. r897), name. There are only six suffixes so used among the names of ancient Italy.' `These suffixes are : • -n10-, -io-, -co -no-, -ti- (or -ati-); -ensi-. T, The suffix -ulo- appears only in a few old names, .See also:Siculi, See also:Rutuli, Appuli, Poediculi and *Vituli, which would have been the pure Latin form instead of Dal, which was taken over from the Grecized form 'IraOol. : - - : . 2. Excluding this small group, the frequency of the occurrence ,of these suffixes in ancient Italy is shown by the following table: Table of Ethnic Suffixes in Ancient Italy.

that is to say, it was used by the Romans to form the names of the inhabitants of municipal towns, as for instance Foro-iulienses, the inhabitants of See also:

Forum Julii. There remain, therefore, the three suffixes -co-, -no-, and -ti-, and it will be seen from the table that the relative frequency of these suffixes in different dialect-areas varies very greatly. The suffix -no-, for example, has almost driven out any other in the district of the Hirpini, and it is greatly preponderant among the Campani, in the district of the Lucani, and among the Latini and Sabini themselves. 5. On the other hand, the -co- suffix, which is nowhere frequent, is practically confined to the central areas. 6. The -11- suffix is comparatively frequent in the Volscian district and very frequent in the Umbrian; it is also fairly well represented in See also:Latium and Etruria. 7. In the See also:article VoLscI it is shown that the addition of the -no-suffix is often a mark of the See also:conquest of an See also:original -co- folk by a Safine tribe. It is also fairly frequently added to names formed with the -ti- suffix: See also:Ardea gave first Ardeates and then Ardeatini; the Picentes became Picentini, the Camertes Camertini; of such forms there are no fewer than 54. 8. The addition of the -ati- suffix to the -no- ethnicon, as in Iguvinates, is comparatively rare, and no doubt denotes the opposite See also:process, namely, the absorption of a -no- tribe by a population to whom it was natural to use the suffix -ti-.

The two opposite processes confirm the inference that both are due to some change of See also:

race, not merely to a change of See also:custom in the same population in a later See also:age; for in that See also:case the change would have been in one direction only. The See also:assumption of the Safine origin of the -no- suffix is further confirmed by the practice of the Romans themselves. The folk of Latium after the Saline conquest were no longer Latiares but Latin; and over against the old name Quiritis was the new Populus See also:Romanus. Just the same rough and ready nomenclature was applied to communities conquered on See also:foreign See also:soil; the Draprcarac became Spartan, the Zupaxboca Syracusani, and the 'Acrt rucoi Asiani, and so on. The assumption that Latin was properly the language of the Latian See also:plain and of the See also:Plebs at Rome, which the conquering patrician nobles learnt from their subjects, and substituted for their own kindred but different Safine See also:idiom, renders easier to understand the borrowing of a number of words into Latin from some dialect (presumably Sabine) where the velars had been labialized; for example, the very See also:common word See also:bos, which in pure Latin should have been •vos. And in See also:general it may be stated that the See also:hypothesis of such an intermixture of forms from neighbouring dialects has been rendered in recent years far more credible by the striking evidence of such continual intermixture going on within quite See also:modern periods of time afforded by the See also:Atlas linguistique de la See also:France, even in the portion which has already been published. The conclusion, therefore, to which the evidence appears to See also:lead us is that in, say, the 7th century, B.c., the Safines spoke a language not differing in any important particulars from that of the Samnites, generally known as Oscan; and that when this warlike tribe combined with the people of the Latian plain to found or fortify or enlarge the See also:city of Rome, and at the end of the 6th century to drive out from it the Etruscans, who had in that century become its masters, they imposed upon the new community many of their own usages, especially within the See also:sphere of politics, but in the end adopted the language of Latium henceforth known as lingua See also:Latina, just as the See also:Normans adopted the language of the conquered See also:English. The glosses and place-names of the ancient Sabine district are collected by R. S. Conway, the Italic Dialects (Cambridge, 1897), p. 351. For the history of the Sabine district see See also:Mommsen, C.I.L. ix. p.

396; and Beloch, " Der italische Bund unter romischer Hegemonie " (See also:

Leipzig, 188o) and La Conquista See also:Romana della regione Sabina," in the Rivista di See also:scoria antica (19o5), ix. 269. (R. S.

End of Article: SABINI

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