Picentes
Encyclopedia
The Picentes or Picentini are Latin exonyms for the people who lived in Picenum
in the northern Adriatic coastal plain of ancient Italy
. The endonym, if any, and its language are not known for certain.
The definition of Picenum depends on the time period. The region between the Appennines and the Adriatic Sea
south of Ancona
(originally a Greek colony) was in Picenum during the entire early historic period. Between Ancona and Rimini
to the north the population was multi-ethnic. In the Roman Republic
it was Gallia Togata, but the Gauls
were known to have combined or supplanted earlier populations. The ager Gallicus, as it was called, was considered both Gaul and Picenum. Under the Roman Empire
the coast south of Rimini was united or reunited with the country south of Ancona as Picenum. By then the only language spoken was Latin.
From Ancona southward a language of the Umbrian Group was spoken, today called South Picene. It is attested mainly in inscriptions. Umbrian was an North of Ancona around Pesaro
a totally different language is attested by four inscriptions, only one of any length, termed for convenience North Picene. It is unknown and a language isolate
. Some authors without evidence have given it the Picene tag on the theory that it may represent an original language spoken in all of Picenum south of Rimini.
. Later refinements of the argument connected it to the Latin name Poponius, as in inscription TE 1 found near Teramo
:
The connection between Poponian and Picentes, if any, remains obscure.
The first document to mention the Latin name is the Fasti triumphales, which record for 268/267 BC a triumph given to Publius Sempronius Sophus for a victory de Peicentibus, "over the Picentes," where the -ei- is an Old Latin
form. The entire group of Latin Picene words delivered subsequently appear to follow the standard rules for Latin word formation. The root is Pīc-, provenience and meaning yet unknown. The extended Pīc-ēn- is used to form a second-declension adjective, appearing in such phrases as Pīcēnus ager, "Picine country," Pīcēnae olivae, "Picene olives", and the neuter used as a noun, Pīcēnum. These are not references to any people, *Pīcēni, but to the country. Pīcēni where it occurs is the genitive case of Pīcēnum and not a nominative plural; that is "of Picenum" and not "the Piceni." Similarly
Pīcēnus used alone implies Pīcēnus ager, the "Picene (country)" and does not mean one resident of Picenum. This adjective is never used of the people.
For the people, a third-declension adjective stem is formed: Pīc-ent-, used in Pīcens and Pīcentes, "a Picentine" and "the Picentines," which are nouns formed from the adjective. This adjective can be used of people or of other words, as well as in a second formation of the name of the country, Pīcentum. From it comes a final name of the people, Pīcentini. The historical order in which these words appeared or whether they came from each other remains unknown.
who lived north of the Sabines and frequently erroneously confused as originally from them by many Roman authors.
therefore is "those of the Woodpecker." His concept was that the interior of Italy was colonized by the Samnites, the colonists relying on the divinely-inspired guidance of a ritually selected animal: a bull for the Sabines, a woodpecker for the Picentes, a wolf for the Hirpini ("those of the wolf"). A few, but not all, ancient authors agreed with Strabo.
There is no doubt that the woodpecker played a part in Picene religion. The theory has its modern advocates also; adding some speculation of his own, Joshua Whatmough, taking up a tradition initiated by Frazer, presented the woodpecker as a tribal totem
, supposing some Italic tribes were named after totems. The Hirpini
, for example, would have had the wolf (hirpo) as a totem, the Lucani
also the wolf, from *luco-, "wolf," corresponding to the Roman wolf. Moreover, Italia may well mean "land of calves." As Whatmough implies, it would have to mean "the people of the calf" and would have to once have been one tribe. The Romans, however, were not named from lupus and apart from the two wolves, one woodpecker and one calf, Whatmough has no other examples. Moreover, Picentes is not an endonym, and at least in Latin they appear to have been named after the country, rather than vice versa. The story is treated today as folk-etymologic.
(after the River Nar). They also concluded a treaty with a people Livy calls the Picentes (the term used is cum Picenti populo, "with the Picentine people"). In 297 BC the Picentes warned the Roman Senate that they had been approached by the Samnites asking for alliance in renewed hostilities with Rome. The Senate thanked them.
After a gap in the record of nearly 30 years the Picentes appear again in a totally different relationship with Rome. The Ager Gallicus on the northeast coast of Italy had for some time been populated by different ethnic groups, mainly Picentes, Etruscans and Gauls. Ancona
had been placed there by the Greeks of Sicily
; north of it the Gauls predominated. In 283 BC after a series of victories over the Gauls, including the Battle of Lake Vadimon, the Romans expelled the Gallic Senones
from the coastal region and annexed it down to Ancona, after which it became "Gallia Togata." In 268 BC the Picentes were defeated in Gallia Togata by two consular armies. Evidently they had rebelled against Rome
, probably in 269.
Ancona
and Asculum
remained independent but the rest of Picenum was annexed. The Romans placed two more colonies to hold it: Ariminum
in 268 and Firmum
in 264. Between these years they moved large numbers of Picentes to Campania
, giving them land at Paestum
and on the river Silarus
and assisted them to build a city, Picentia
. They also placed a garrison at Salernum
to monitor them. Strabo reports that in his time they had depopulated the city in favor of villages scattered about the Salerno region. In Ptolemy
's time (2nd century AD) a population named by him the Picentini were still at Salernum
and Surentum
.
Picenum
Picenum was a region of ancient Italy. The name is an exonym assigned by the Romans, who conquered and incorporated it into the Roman Republic. Picenum was the birthplace of such notables as Pompey the Great and his father Pompeius Strabo. It was situated in what is now Marche...
in the northern Adriatic coastal plain of ancient Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The endonym, if any, and its language are not known for certain.
The definition of Picenum depends on the time period. The region between the Appennines and the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
south of Ancona
Ancona
Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....
(originally a Greek colony) was in Picenum during the entire early historic period. Between Ancona and Rimini
Rimini
Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
to the north the population was multi-ethnic. In the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
it was Gallia Togata, but the Gauls
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
were known to have combined or supplanted earlier populations. The ager Gallicus, as it was called, was considered both Gaul and Picenum. Under the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
the coast south of Rimini was united or reunited with the country south of Ancona as Picenum. By then the only language spoken was Latin.
From Ancona southward a language of the Umbrian Group was spoken, today called South Picene. It is attested mainly in inscriptions. Umbrian was an North of Ancona around Pesaro
Pesaro
Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....
a totally different language is attested by four inscriptions, only one of any length, termed for convenience North Picene. It is unknown and a language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
. Some authors without evidence have given it the Picene tag on the theory that it may represent an original language spoken in all of Picenum south of Rimini.
Name
Edward Togo Salmon suggested that the endonym may be pupeneis "or something similar," an ethnic name used in four south Picene language inscriptions found near Ascoli PicenoAscoli Piceno
Ascoli Piceno is a town and comune in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of the same name. Its population is c. 51,400.-Geography:...
. Later refinements of the argument connected it to the Latin name Poponius, as in inscription TE 1 found near Teramo
Teramo
Teramo is a city and comune in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, the capital of the province of Teramo.The city, from Rome, is situated between the highest mountains of the Apennines and the Adriatic coast...
:
- apaes ...púpúnis nir
- "Appaes ... a Poponian man"
The connection between Poponian and Picentes, if any, remains obscure.
The first document to mention the Latin name is the Fasti triumphales, which record for 268/267 BC a triumph given to Publius Sempronius Sophus for a victory de Peicentibus, "over the Picentes," where the -ei- is an Old Latin
Old Latin
Old Latin refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC...
form. The entire group of Latin Picene words delivered subsequently appear to follow the standard rules for Latin word formation. The root is Pīc-, provenience and meaning yet unknown. The extended Pīc-ēn- is used to form a second-declension adjective, appearing in such phrases as Pīcēnus ager, "Picine country," Pīcēnae olivae, "Picene olives", and the neuter used as a noun, Pīcēnum. These are not references to any people, *Pīcēni, but to the country. Pīcēni where it occurs is the genitive case of Pīcēnum and not a nominative plural; that is "of Picenum" and not "the Piceni." Similarly
Pīcēnus used alone implies Pīcēnus ager, the "Picene (country)" and does not mean one resident of Picenum. This adjective is never used of the people.
For the people, a third-declension adjective stem is formed: Pīc-ent-, used in Pīcens and Pīcentes, "a Picentine" and "the Picentines," which are nouns formed from the adjective. This adjective can be used of people or of other words, as well as in a second formation of the name of the country, Pīcentum. From it comes a final name of the people, Pīcentini. The historical order in which these words appeared or whether they came from each other remains unknown.
The Sabine origin
The Piceni were SabelliansSabellians
Sabellians is a collective ethnonym for a group of Italic peoples or tribes inhabiting central and southern Italy at the time of the rise of Rome. The name was first applied by Niebuhr and encompassed the Sabines, Marsi, Marrucini and Vestini. Pliny in one passage says the Samnites were also...
who lived north of the Sabines and frequently erroneously confused as originally from them by many Roman authors.
The woodpecker etymology
Strabo relates the legend that when the people who would become the Picentini left Sabine country for the country they would name Picenum a woodpecker led the way. The meaning of the ethnonymEthnonym
An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...
therefore is "those of the Woodpecker." His concept was that the interior of Italy was colonized by the Samnites, the colonists relying on the divinely-inspired guidance of a ritually selected animal: a bull for the Sabines, a woodpecker for the Picentes, a wolf for the Hirpini ("those of the wolf"). A few, but not all, ancient authors agreed with Strabo.
There is no doubt that the woodpecker played a part in Picene religion. The theory has its modern advocates also; adding some speculation of his own, Joshua Whatmough, taking up a tradition initiated by Frazer, presented the woodpecker as a tribal totem
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
, supposing some Italic tribes were named after totems. The Hirpini
Hirpini
The Hirpini , were an ancient Samnite people of central Italy. While general regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation...
, for example, would have had the wolf (hirpo) as a totem, the Lucani
Lucani
Lučani is a town and municipality located in the Dragačevo region within the Moravica District of Serbia . The population of the town is 3,425, while population of the municipality was 20,855....
also the wolf, from *luco-, "wolf," corresponding to the Roman wolf. Moreover, Italia may well mean "land of calves." As Whatmough implies, it would have to mean "the people of the calf" and would have to once have been one tribe. The Romans, however, were not named from lupus and apart from the two wolves, one woodpecker and one calf, Whatmough has no other examples. Moreover, Picentes is not an endonym, and at least in Latin they appear to have been named after the country, rather than vice versa. The story is treated today as folk-etymologic.
History
In 299 BC the Romans captured Nequinum, a city of the Umbrians, colonized it and renamed it NarniNarni
Narni is an ancient hilltown and comune of Umbria, in central Italy, with 20,100 inhabitants, according to the 2003 census. At an altitude of 240 m , it overhangs a narrow gorge of the Nera River in the province of Terni. It is very close to the Geographic center of Italy...
(after the River Nar). They also concluded a treaty with a people Livy calls the Picentes (the term used is cum Picenti populo, "with the Picentine people"). In 297 BC the Picentes warned the Roman Senate that they had been approached by the Samnites asking for alliance in renewed hostilities with Rome. The Senate thanked them.
After a gap in the record of nearly 30 years the Picentes appear again in a totally different relationship with Rome. The Ager Gallicus on the northeast coast of Italy had for some time been populated by different ethnic groups, mainly Picentes, Etruscans and Gauls. Ancona
Ancona
Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....
had been placed there by the Greeks of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
; north of it the Gauls predominated. In 283 BC after a series of victories over the Gauls, including the Battle of Lake Vadimon, the Romans expelled the Gallic Senones
Senones
The Senones were an ancient Gaulish tribe.In about 400 BC they crossed the Alps and, having driven out the Umbrians settled on the east coast of Italy from Forlì to Ancona, in the so-called ager Gallicus, and founded the town of Sena Gallica , which became their capital. In 391 BC they invaded...
from the coastal region and annexed it down to Ancona, after which it became "Gallia Togata." In 268 BC the Picentes were defeated in Gallia Togata by two consular armies. Evidently they had rebelled against Rome
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
, probably in 269.
Ancona
Ancona
Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....
and Asculum
Ascoli
-Places of Italy:*Ascoli Piceno, a city and provincial seat in Marche*Ascoli Satriano, a town in the Province of Foggia*Porto d'Ascoli, a civil parish of San Benedetto del Tronto, in the province of Ascoli Piceno*Province of Ascoli Piceno, a province of the Marche...
remained independent but the rest of Picenum was annexed. The Romans placed two more colonies to hold it: Ariminum
Rimini
Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
in 268 and Firmum
Fermo
Fermo is a town and comune of the Marche, Italy, in the Province of Fermo.Fermo is located on a hill, the Sabulo with a fine view, on a branch from Porto San Giorgio on the Adriatic coast railway....
in 264. Between these years they moved large numbers of Picentes to Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, giving them land at Paestum
Paestum
Paestum is the classical Roman name of a major Graeco-Roman city in the Campania region of Italy. It is located in the north of Cilento, near the coast about 85 km SE of Naples in the province of Salerno, and belongs to the commune of Capaccio, officially also named...
and on the river Silarus
Sele
Sele may refer to:In places:*Sele, Norway, two villages with this name in Øygarden, Norway*Sele, West Sussex, an English hamlet*Sele Priory, a Benedictine monastery in modern day Upper Beeding, West Sussex...
and assisted them to build a city, Picentia
Pontecagnano Faiano
Pontecagnano Faiano is a town and comune of the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-west Italy. Its population as of 2009 was of 25,096 inhabitants...
. They also placed a garrison at Salernum
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
to monitor them. Strabo reports that in his time they had depopulated the city in favor of villages scattered about the Salerno region. In Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
's time (2nd century AD) a population named by him the Picentini were still at Salernum
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
and Surentum
Sorrento
Sorrento is the name of many cities and towns:*Sorrento, Italy*Sorrento, Florida, United States*Sorrento, Louisiana, United States*Sorrento, Maine, United States*Sorrento, Victoria, a township on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia...
.
See also
- PicenumPicenumPicenum was a region of ancient Italy. The name is an exonym assigned by the Romans, who conquered and incorporated it into the Roman Republic. Picenum was the birthplace of such notables as Pompey the Great and his father Pompeius Strabo. It was situated in what is now Marche...
- North Picene languageNorth Picene languageThe North Picene language is a hypothetical construct based on four inscriptions of the Italian Iron Age from the Pesaro region of northeast Italy. The total number of words is about 60...
- South Picene languageSouth Picene languageSouth Picene is an extinct Italic language, belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is currently considered by SIL International to belong to the Umbrian Group although in the long history of its attempted classification it has been placed at a higher level, parallel to Oscan and Umbrian within...
- Ancient peoples of Italy