The Arusnates were an ancient people inhabiting the eastern shores of Lacus Benacus (

Lake Garda Lake Garda (, , or , ; ; ) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, between Brescia and Milan to the west, and Verona and Venice to the east. The lake cuts into the edge of the Eastern Alps, Italian Alp ...

), northwest of

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

, at the time of contact with the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

. The Romans named the territory Pagus Arusnatium which roughly corresponds to the modern

Valpolicella Valpolicella (, , ) is a viticultural zone of the province of Verona, Italy (wine), Italy, east of Lake Garda. The hilly agricultural and marble-quarrying region of small holdings north of the Adige is famous for wine production. Valpolicella ra ...

district of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Not much is known about the Arusnates; attempts to link them to

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( ) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in List of ancient peoples of Italy, ancient Italy, with a common language and culture, and formed a federation of city-states. Af ...

Rhaetians The Raeti ( ; spelling variants: ''Rhaeti'', ''Rheti'' or ''Rhaetii'') were a confederation of Alpine tribes, whose language and culture were related to those of the Etruscans. Before the Roman conquest, they inhabited present-day Tyrol in Austr ...

have been unsuccessful due to lack of evidence. The names of (some of) their gods and goddesses have been preserved (through the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

): Cuslano, Imnhagalle, Lualda, Schnagalle, and Udisna Augusta.

References

Valpolicella history and culture site
*Ettore de Ruggiero,
Dizionario epigrafico di antichità romane
' *

Richard Talbert Richard John Alexander Talbert (born 26 April 1947) is a British-American contemporary ancient historian and classicist on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of Histo ...

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World The ''Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World'' is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert, Richard J. A. Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from Archaic Greece, ...

, p. 39 Ancient peoples of Italy History of Veneto {{ethno-stub