Aborigines (mythology)

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A map of Latium, claimed homeland of the Aborigines.

The Aborigines in

Sabine town) upon Latium, where they expelled the Sicels and subsequently settled down as Latini under a King Latinus.[1][2]

Etymology

The most generally accepted etymology of the

tree-born," and aberrigines, meaning "nomads". Lycophron calls a people of central Italy, Boreigonoi.[4]

Background

The Aborigines were possibly descendants of the

Anio.[1] The Sicels, who inhabited Latium at the time, gave way to the Aborigines, and a portion of them emigrated to Sicily, providing the origin for the island's name.[1] The emigration of the Sicels to Sicily is said to have taken place in either 1264 BC[7] or 1035 BC (Thucydides).[1]

The remaining Siculians joined with the Aborigines eventually becoming the people known as Prisci Latini (meaning old Latins), that is Prisci et Latini, or simply Latini.[1] The Aborigines did not become Latini until the reign of their king, Latinus, from whom the Romans attributed their name. This was after the arrival of the Trojans with Aeneas in the aftermath of the Trojan War.[8]

Cities

The following list is based on Dionysius of Halicarnassus.[9][10]

  • Palatium: 25
    Reate
    .
  • Tribula: 60 stades from Reate.
  • Suesbula: 60 stades from Tribula, near the Ceraunian Mountains.
  • Suna: 40 stades from Suesbula, with an ancient temple of
    Mars
    .
  • Mefula: about 30 stades from Suna (ruins with walls in Roman times).
  • Orvinium: 40 stades from Mefula. Apparently was once a large and famous city in its area with an ancient temple of Minerva.
  • Corsula: about 80 stades from Reate, following the Curian Way, a road thought to go through Reate.
  • Issa: an island surrounded by a lake, where the Aborigines relied on the marshy waters of the lake for defence.
  • Maruvium: Situated near Issa, on an arm of the same lake and distant forty stades from something called the Septem Aquae.
  • Batia: 30 stades from Reate.
  • Tiora (or Matiene): at a distance of 300 stades from Reate.
  • Lista: 24 stades from Tiora, claimed to be the mother-city of the Aborigines, which the Sabines had captured by a surprise attack.
  • Cutilia: 70 stades from Reate.

All of these cities are claimed to have been taken from the

Siculians.[10][12]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Dr. Leonhard Schmitz A History of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Commodus, A.D. 192. p.8-9
  2. ^ a b Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, I.9.
  3. ^ Marcus Porcius Cato. Origines, 5.6.7.
  4. ^ Lycophron. Alexandra, 1253.
  5. ^ Barthold Georg Niebuhr Niebuhr's History of Rome, vol I note 47
  6. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 1.13
  7. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities I. 22
  8. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities I.9, 60
  9. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities I.14, I.15
  10. ^ a b William Smith Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854)
  11. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities I.16
  12. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities I.44, II.35

References

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aborigines". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Further reading

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