The Oenotrians (Οἴνωτρες, meaning "tribe led by
Oenotrus
In Greek mythology, Oenotrus ( Ancient Greek: Οἴνωτρος) was the youngest of fifty sons of Lycaon from Arcadia. Together with his brother Peucetius (Greek: Πευκέτιος), he migrated to the Italian Peninsula, dissatisfied because ...
" or "people from the land of vines - Οἰνωτρία") were an ancient
Italic people who inhabited a territory in
Southern Italy from
Paestum to southern
Calabria. By the sixth century BC, the Oenotrians had been absorbed into other
Italic tribes
The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
The Italic peoples are descended from the Indo-European speaking peoples who inhabited Italy from at le ...
.
According to
Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to:
* Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium''
*Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC
* Pausanias of Sicily, physician of ...
,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus and
Eusebius, Oenotria was named after Oenotrus, the youngest of the fifty sons of
Lycaon who migrated there from
Arcadia in
Peloponnese,
Greece.
According to
Antoninus Liberalis
Antoninus Liberalis ( el, Ἀντωνῖνος Λιβεράλις) was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between AD 100 and 300.
His only surviving work is the ''Metamorphoses'' (Μεταμορφώσεων Συναγωγή, ''M ...
and
Hellanicus, their arrival triggered the migration of the
Elymians to
Sicily. The settlement of the
Greeks with the first stable colonies, such as
Metapontum
Metapontum or Metapontium ( grc, Μεταπόντιον, Metapontion) was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus (modern Basento). It was distant about 20 km fro ...
, founded on a native one (Metabon), pushed the Oenotrians inland. From these positions a "wear and tear war" was started off with the Greek colonies, which they plundered more than once. From the 5th century BC onwards, they disappeared under the pressure of an
Oscan
Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian.
Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including t ...
people, the
Lucanians. Virgil mentions them as the settlers of
Hesperia whose descendants now call their land Italy. They are generally depicted as belonging to the
Pelasgians.
Pliny the Elder mentions that "...opposite to Velia are Poiitia and Isacia, both known by one name, that of Oenotrides, a proof that Italy was formerly possessed by the Oenotrians".
A likely derivation of the
ethnonym Oenotrian would be the
Greek οἶνος (''oinos''), "wine", as the Oenotrians inhabited a territory rich in
vineyards, with Oenotria (or Enotria) being extended to refer to the entirety of
Southern Italy.
Hesychius mentions the word οἴνωτρον (''oinōtron''), a kind of a vine stake.
Language & Origins
According to a traditionalist view, the Oenotrians represent the southern branch of a very old and different ethno-linguistic layer from the proto-Latin one, which would have occupied the
Tyrrhenian sea
The Tyrrhenian Sea (; it, Mar Tirreno , french: Mer Tyrrhénienne , sc, Mare Tirrenu, co, Mari Tirrenu, scn, Mari Tirrenu, nap, Mare Tirreno) is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian p ...
area from
Liguria to
Sicily (''
Ligurian/
Sicanian
The Sicani ( Ancient Greek Σῐκᾱνοί ''Sikānoí'') or Sicanians were one of three ancient peoples of Sicily present at the time of Phoenician and Greek colonization. The Sicani dwelt east of the Elymians and west of the Sicels, having, a ...
'' layer).
Previously it was thought that the Oenotrians might have spoken a pre-
Indo European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dut ...
language. In 1991 inscriptions dating from the 6th or 5th century BC were discovered in the ancient Oenotrian settlement of
Tortora, Calabria, revealing that the Oenotrians spoke an Italic language.
See also
*
King Italus
*
Ancient people of Italy
Notes
{{reflist
Ancient peoples of Italy
Greek tribes
Pelasgians