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Ver Sacrum
''Ver sacrum'' ("sacred spring") is a religious practice of ancient Italic peoples, especially the Sabelli (or Sabini) and their offshoot Samnites, concerning the dedication of colonies. It was of special interest to Georges Dumézil, according to whom the ''ver sacrum'' perpetuated prehistoric migration practices of Indo-Europeans to the end of the Iron Age and into the beginnings of history, when stable sedentary dwelling conditions had already become general. Religious meaning The practice consisted of a vow ('' votum'') dedicating to the god Mars all offspring (livestock and/or human) born in the following spring. Among the Sabines, this was the period from March 1 to April 30. The practice is related to that of ''devotio'' in Roman religion. It was customary to resort to it at times of particular danger or strife for the community. Some scholars believe that in earlier times ''devoted'' or vowed children were actually sacrificed, but later expulsion was substituted. Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Peoples Of Italy
This list of ancient peoples living in Italy summarises the many different Italian populations that existed in antiquity. Among them, the Romans succeeded in Romanizing the entire Italian peninsula following the Roman expansion in Italy, which provides the time-window in which most of the names of the remaining ancient Italian peoples first appear in existing written documentation. Many names are exonyms assigned by the ancient writers of works in ancient Greek and Latin, while others are scholarly inventions. Nearly all of these peoples and tribes spoke Indo-European languages: Italics, Celts, Ancient Greeks, and tribes likely occupying various intermediate positions between these language groups. On the other hand, some Italian peoples (such as the Rhaetians, Camuni, Etruscans) likely spoke non- or pre-Indo-European languages. In addition, peoples speaking languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, specifically the largely Semitic Phoenicians and Carthaginians, settled and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on good terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was a friend of Augustus. Livy encouraged Augustus’s young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, to take up the writing of history. Life Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua, probably in 59 BC. At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). Cisalpine Gaul was merged into Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mamertini
The Mamertines (, "sons of Mars", ) were mercenaries of Italian origin who had been hired from their home in Campania by Agathocles (361–289 BC), Tyrant of Syracuse and self-proclaimed King of Sicily. After Syracuse lost the Seventh Sicilian War, the city of Messina was ceded to Carthage in 307 BC. When Agathocles died in 289 BC it left many of his mercenaries idle and unemployed in Sicily. Most of them returned home but some, liking the climate and the prospect of adventure on a foreign island, remained. They played a major role in the lead-up to the First Punic War. In 280 BC, the Syracusans appealed to King Pyrrhus of Epirus for help against the Mamertines. Capture of Messina The then-small band of desperados came across the walled Greek settlement of Messina built on a strategic location on the north-eastern tip of Sicily on the strait between Sicily and Italy. Together with the fort Rhegium on the toe of Italy, it was the crossing point between Italy and Sicily. Bein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bovianum Undecumanorum
Bojano or Boiano is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Campobasso, Molise, south-central Italy. History Originally named Bovianum, it was settled by the 7th century BC. As the capital of the Pentri, a tribe of the Samnites, it played a major role in the Samnite Wars, as well as in the Social War, when it was a temporary capital (89 BC). It was sacked by Sulla. It was colonized under both the triumvirates, and by Vespasian, who settled veterans of Legio XI ''Claudia'' (whence the name ''Bovianum Undecumanorum'', to distinguish it from Bovianum Vetus), and remained an important centre into late antiquity. After the Lombard conquest, the deserted area was given to a group of Bulgars, who circa 662 fled from the Avars and sought refuge with the Lombards. Bojano became a seat of a gastaldate. The Bulgars also settled in nearby Sepino and Isernia. Paul the Deacon in his ''Historia Langobardorum'' writing after the year 787 says that in his time Bulgars still inhabited the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latium
Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on which resided the tribe of the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins or Latians. It was located on the left bank (east and south) of the Tiber, River Tiber, extending northward to the Aniene, River Anio (a left-bank tributary of the Tiber) and southeastward to the Pomptina Palus (Pontine Marshes, now the Pontine Fields) as far south as the Cape Circeo, Circeian promontory. The right bank of the Tiber was occupied by the Etruscan city of Veii, and the other borders were occupied by Ancient Italic people, Italic tribes. Subsequently, Rome defeated Veii and then its Italic neighbours, expanding its dominions over Southern Etruria and to the south, in a partly marshy and partly mountainous region. The latter saw the creation of numerous Roman and Latin col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aequi
300px, Location of the Aequi (Equi) in central Italy, 5th century BC. The Aequi were an Italic tribe on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains to the east of Latium in central Italy who appear in the early history of ancient Rome. After a long struggle for independence from Rome, they were defeated and substantial Roman colonies were placed on their soil. Only two inscriptions believed to be in the Aequian language remain. No more can be deduced than that the language was Italic. Otherwise, the inscriptions from the region are those of the Latin-speaking colonists in Latin. The colonial exonym documented in these inscriptions is Aequi and also Aequicoli ("colonists of Aequium"). The manuscript variants of the classical authors present Equic-, Aequic-, Aequac-. If the form without the -coli is taken as an original, it may well also be the endonym, but to date further evidence is lacking. Historical geography The historians made many entries concerning the wars between the Aequi and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marche
Marche ( ; ), in English sometimes referred to as the Marches ( ) from the Italian name of the region (Le Marche), is one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. The region is located in the Central Italy, central area of the country, and has a population of about 1.5 million people, being the thirteenth largest region in the country by number of inhabitants. The region's capital and largest city is Ancona. The Marche region is bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the north, Tuscany and Umbria to the west, Lazio to the southwest, Abruzzo to the south, and the Adriatic Sea to the east. Except for river valleys and the often very narrow coastal strip, the land is hilly. A railway from Bologna to Brindisi, built in the 19th century, runs along the coast of the entire territory. Inland, the mountainous nature of the region, even today, allows relatively little travel north and south, except by twisting roads over the passes. From the Middle ages t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picentes
The Picentes or Piceni or Picentini were an ancient Italic peoples, Italic people who lived from the 9th to the 3rd century BC in the area between the Foglia and Aterno rivers, bordered to the west by the Apennines and to the east by the Adriatic coast. Their territory, known as ''Picenum'', therefore included all of today's Marche and the northern part of Abruzzo. Piceni derived their culture and genetic ancestry from the Early Bronze Age Cetina culture at the other side of the Adriatic Sea, and Late Bronze Age Hallstatt culture along the Danube River, as a 2024 study confirms. The limits of Picenum depend on the era; during the early classical antiquity the region between the Apennine Mountains, Apennines and the Adriatic Sea south of Ancona was Picenum (South Picenians), while between Ancona and Rimini to the north the population was multi-ethnic (North Picenians) because after 390 BC the Senones, Senoni Gauls had combined with or supplanted earlier populations. In the Roman Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Campania
Campania is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy located in Southern Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian Peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the island of Capri. The capital of the region is Naples. Campania has a population of 5,575,025 as of 2025, making it Italy's third most populous region, and, with an area of , its most densely populated region. Based on its Gross domestic product, GDP, Campania is also the most economically productive region in Southern Italy List of Italian regions by GDP, and the 7th most productive in the whole country. Naples' urban area, which is in Campania, is the List of urban areas in the European Union, eighth most populous in the European Union. The region is home to 10 of the 58 List of World Heritage Sites in Italy, UNESCO sites in Italy, including Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Amalfi Coast, the Longobardian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hirpini
The Hirpini (Latin: ') were an ancient Samnite tribe of Southern Italy. While generally regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation. They inhabited the southern portion of Samnium, in the more extensive sense of that name, roughly the area now known as Irpinia from their name—a mountainous region bordering on Basilicata towards the south, on Apulia to the east, and on Campania towards the west. No marked natural boundary separated them from these neighboring nations, but they occupied the lofty masses and groups of the central Apennines, while the plains on each side, and the lower ranges that bounded them, belonged to their more fortunate neighbors. The mountain basin formed by the three tributaries of the ''Vulturnus'' (modern Volturno)—the ''Tamarus'' (modern Tammaro), ''Calor'' (modern Calore), and ''Sabatus'' (modern Sabato), which, with their valleys, unite near Beneventum, surrounded on all sides by lofty and rug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eponym
An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovations, biological nomenclature, astronomical objects, works of art and media, and tribal names. Various orthographic conventions are used for eponyms. Usage of the word The term ''eponym'' functions in multiple related ways, all based on an explicit relationship between two named things. ''Eponym'' may refer to a person or, less commonly, a place or thing for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. ''Eponym'' may also refer to someone or something named after, or believed to be named after, a person or, less commonly, a place or thing. A person, place, or thing named after a particular person share an eponymous relationship. In this way, Elizabeth I of England is the eponym of the Elizabethan era, but the Elizabethan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus ("Varro of Rieti") to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus ("Varro of Aude (river), Atax"). Biography Varro was born in or near Reate (now Rieti in Lazio) into a family thought to be of Equites, equestrian rank. He always remained close to his roots in the area, owning a large farm in the Reatine plain (reported as near Lago di Ripasottile,) until his old age. He supported Pompey, reaching the office of praetor, after having served as tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people, ''quaestor'' and ''curule aedile''. It is probable that Varro was discontented with the course on which Pompey entered when the First Triumvirate formed 60 BC, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
