The Caudini were a Samnite tribe that lived among the mountains ringing

Campania (man), it, Campana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demog ...

and in the valleys of the Isclero and Volturnus rivers. Their capital was at

Caudium Caudium (modern Montesarchio) was the main city of the ancient Caudini tribe in Samnium situated on the Appian Way between Beneventum (modern Benevento) and Capua, in what is now southern Italy. It was 21 Roman miles from Capua, and 11 from Beneve ...

, but it seems certain that the appellation was not confined to the citizens of Caudium and its immediate territory.

Description

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 ...

speaks in more than one passage of the Caudini as a tribe or people, in the same terms as of the Hirpini, and Niebuhr supposed them to have been one of the four tribes comprising the Samnite confederacy. As the most western of the Samnite groups, they were the Samnite tribe most affected by the neighbouring Greeks of Campania. Together with the Hirpini, Pentri, and Carceni tribes, the Caudini people were described as rustic, thriving on an agrarian economy mainly as ''massari'' (peasant farmers) and ''pecorari'' (herdsmen and shepherds). The extent of their territory is unclear. The ancient poet

Gratius Faliscus Grattius (or Gratius) Faliscus was a Roman poet who flourished during the life of Augustus (63 BC – 14 AD). He is known as the author of a '' Cynegeticon'', a poem on hunting. Life The only reference to Grattius in any extant ancient writer i ...

(''Cyneget.'' 509) called the great mountain mass of the Taburnus the "Caudinus Taburnus", and this must have been at the center of their territory. It probably joined that of the Hirpini on the one side and of the Pentri on the other, while on the west it bordered immediately on Campania. But the name is not recognised by any of the geographers as a general appellation, and appears to have fallen into disuse: the Caudini of Pliny (iii. 11. s. 16) are only the citizens of Caudium. The cities of the Caudini included

(modern ''Montesarchio''), Telesia (modern ''San Salvatore Telesino''),

Saticula Saticula was a Caudini city near the frontier of Campania in southern Italy. In 343 BC, during the First Samnite War, the Roman consul Cornelius attacked it during the campaign against the Samnites in the Battle of Saticula. Its archaeologic ...

(modern ''Sant'Agata de' Goti''), Caiatia (modern ''Caiazzo''), Trebula, and Cubulteria.

Samnite Wars

The Caudini are nowhere mentioned as a separate tribe in our narratives of the Romans' Samnite Wars, probably because they were assumed included whenever the Samnites were mentioned. The territory of the Caudini was the scene of much fighting. This could be attributed to the tribe's location, which was the most westerly among the Samnites, hence, the most exposed to attacks by the Romans. Velleius Paterculus (ii. 1) says that it was with the Caudini that the Romans made their treaty following their defeat at the Battle of the Caudine Forks, where Livy uniformly talks of the Samnites. In 275 BC, the tribe was subjugated by

L. Cornelius Lentulus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

, whose family henceforth took the name ‘Caudinus’. Caudini later revolted in 216. It is suggested that the tribe was encouraged to turn against the Romans after the arrival of

Hannibal Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Pu ...

's army near

Capua Capua ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. History Ancient era The name of Capua comes from the Etrusc ...

. During the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

, the Roman historian

reported Caudini's defection after the Roman defeat at

Cannae Cannae (now Canne della Battaglia, ) is an ancient village of the Apulia region of south east Italy. It is a ''frazione'' (civil parish) of the ''comune'' (municipality) of Barletta. Cannae was formerly a bishopric, and is presently (2022) a Lati ...

Sources

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References

Samnite tribes Socii {{ancientRome-stub