The Caraceni or Caricini or Carricini were a tribe of the Italic

Samnites The Samnites () were an ancient Italic peoples, Italic people who lived in Samnium, which is located in modern inland Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania in south-central Italy. An Oscan language, Oscan-speaking Osci, people, who originated as an offsh ...

. According to Salmon, their name comes from the Celtic carreg- and car- .E.T.Salmon, ''Il Sannio ed i Sanniti'', Einaudi, Torino 1995 According to

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

, they inhabited the most northern part of Samnium, bordering on the Peligni and the

Frentani The Frentani were an Italic tribe occupying the tract on the southeast coast of the Italian peninsula from the Apennines to the Adriatic, and from the frontiers of Apulia to those of the Marrucini. They were bounded on the west by the Samnites, ...

; but more especially the upper valley of the Sagrus (modern Sangro). The only city that he assigns to them is Aufidena. Zonaras describes them as possessing a town or stronghold, which was taken by the Roman consuls Q. Gallus and C. Fabius with difficulty. Aufidena has been identified with the modern Castel di Sangro, which seems, from the inscriptions and other remains discovered there, to have been an ancient town. Their territory was delimited to the north and east from that of the Frentani, to the south from that of the Pentri, and to the west from that of the Peligni. The tribe divided itself in two groups: the "Car cini supernates", which occupied the northern part of their eastern region centered on the city of Juvanum (whose remains are visible in the territory between the communes of Torricella Peligna and Montenerodomo); and the "Car cini infernates" in the southern part, whose main center was Cluviae (whose ruins have been identified with those at Piano Laroma, a

frazione A ''frazione'' (: ''frazioni'') is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' ('municipality') in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidat ...

of the commune of Casoli). This small community comprised part of the Samnite Confederation, the great antagonist of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

, against which it participated in the

Samnite Wars The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars (343–341 BC, 326–304 BC, and 298–290 BC) were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe. ...

and the Social War. The territory of the Caraceni probably came to be occupied by the Romans in the course of the Second Samnite War (c. 310 BC), and the people were gradually assimilated into the Roman state. Pliny (iii. 12. s. 17), describes a tribe called Carentini which that author seems to place among the Frentani, with the Caraceni, but distinct from them.

References

*{{SmithDGRG Samnite tribes