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SAMNITES

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 115 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAMNITES , the name given by the See also:

Romans to the warlike tribes inhabiting the mountainous centre of the S. See also:half of See also:Italy. The word Samnites was not the name, so far as we know, used by the Samnites themselves, which would seem rather to have been (the Oscan See also:form of) the word which in Latin appears as Sabin (see below). The ending of Samnites seems to be connected with the name by which they were known to the Greeks of the Campanian See also:coast, which by the See also:time of See also:Polybius had become auvirat; and it is in connexion with the Greeks of See also:Cumae and See also:Naples that we first hear of the collision between See also:Rome and the Samnites.2 We know both from tradition and from surviving See also:inscriptions (see OSCA LINGUA and R. S. See also:Conway, The See also:Italic Dialects, pp. 169 to 206) that they spoke Oscan; and tradition records that the Samnites were an offshoot of the Sabines (see e.g. See also:Festus, p. 326 Mueller). On two inscriptions, of which one is unfortunately incomplete, and the other is the See also:legend on a See also:coin of the Social See also:War, we have the form Safinim, which would be in Latin *Sabinium, and is best regarded as the nominative or See also:accusative singular, neuter or masculine, agreeing with some substantive understood, such as nummum (see R. S. Conway, ibid. pp. 188 and 216).

The abundance of the ethnica ending in the suffix -no- in all the Samnite districts classes them unmistakably with the See also:

great Safine stock, so that linguistic See also:evidence confirms tradition (see further See also:SABINI). The Samnites are thus shown to be intimately related to the patrician class at Rome (see ROME: See also:history, ad init.); so that it was against their own stock that the Romans had to fight their hardest struggle for the lordship of Italy, a struggle which might never have arisen but for the See also:geographical See also:accident by which the See also:Etruscan and See also:Greek settlements of See also:Campania divided into two halves the Safine settlements in central Italy. The longest and most important See also:monument of the Oscan See also:language, as it was spoken by the Samnites (in, probably, the 3rd See also:century B.C.) is the small See also:bronze tablet, engraved on both sides, known as the Tabula Agnonensis, found in 1848 at the See also:modern See also:village Agnone, in the See also:heart of the Samnite See also:district, not very far from the site of See also:Bovianum, which was the centre of the N. See also:group of Samnites called Pentri (see below). This inscription, now preserved in the See also:British Museum, is carefully engraved in full Oscan See also:alphabet, and perfectly legible (facsimile given by See also:Mommsen, Unteritalische Dialekte, Taf. 7, and by I. Zvetaieff, Sylloge inscriptionum Oscarum). The See also:text and commentary will be found in Conway, op. cit. p. 191: it contains a See also:list of deities to whom statues were erected in the See also:precinct sacred to See also:Ceres, or some allied divinity, and on the back a list of deities to whom altars were erected in the same See also:place. Among those whose names are immediately intelligible may be mentioned those of "Jove the Ruler " and of " See also:Hercules See also:Cerealis." The other names are full of See also:interest for the student of both the See also:languages 2 For the difficult questions involved in the obscure and fragmentary accounts of the so-called First Samnite War, which ended in 341 B.C., the reader is referred to J. Beloch, See also:Cam panien, 2nd ed., pp. 442 if., and to the commentators on See also:Livy vii. 29 if.

and the religions of See also:

ancient Italy. The latest attempts at See also:interpretation will be found in R. S. Conway, Dialectorum Italicarum exempla selecta (s.v.) and C. D. See also:Buck, Oscan and Umbrian See also:Grammar, p. 254. The Samnite towns in or near the upper valley of the Volturnus, namely, See also:Telesia, See also:Allifae, See also:Aesernia, and the problematic Phistelia, learnt the See also:art of striking coins from their neighbours in Campania, on the other See also:side of the valley, Compulteria and See also:Venafrum, in the 4th century B.C. (see Conway, op. cit. p. 196). The Samnite See also:alliance when it first appears in history, in the 4th century B.C., included those tribes which See also:lay between the See also:Paeligni to the N., the Lucani to the S., the Campani to the W., the See also:Frentani and Apuli to the E.: that is to say, the See also:Hirpini, Pentri and Caraceni, and perhaps also the Caudini (J. Beloch, Italischer Bund, p.

167, and R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, pp. 169 and 183); but with these are sometimes classed other friendly and kindred communities in neighbouring territory, like the Frentani and See also:

Atina (Liv. x. 39). But after the war with See also:Pyrrhus the Romans for ever weakened the See also:power of the Italic tribes by dividing this central mountainous See also:tract into two halves. The territories of the Latin See also:colony Beneventum (268 B.C.) and the Ager Taurasinus (Livy xl. 38, C.I.L., 1st ed., i. 30) See also:united that of Saticula on the W. (313 B.C.) to that of Luceria on the E., and cut off the Hirpini from their kinsmen by a broad See also:belt of See also:land under Latin occupation (Velleius Pat. i. 14; Liv. Ix.

26). At the same time Allifae and Venafrum became praefectures (Feat. p. 233 M), and the Latin colony of Aesernia was founded in 263 B.C. in purely Samnite territory to command the upper Volturnus valley. We hear of no further resistance in the N. of Samnium till the See also:

general rising of Italy in 90 B.C.; but the more southerly Hirpini (q.v.) henceforth acted independently. (R. S.

End of Article: SAMNITES

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