Campanians

The Campanians (also Campani) were an ancient Italic tribe, part of the Osci nation, speaking an Oscan language.

Descending from the

Apennines, the proto-Osci settled in the areas of present-day Campania at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, or even before. They established themselves there over a previous Italic population of possible Latino-Faliscan origin. The Opici, Ausones and Aurunci

were later linguistically and culturally Oscanized.

From the 7th to the 5th century BC, Greek colonists submitted or expelled them from the area, but starting from the mid of the 5th century BC, the Osci reconquered many cities on the coasts of present-day

Etruscans

).

From the Greeks and the Etruscans the Osci learnt of the institution of the Polis, soon differentiating themselves from the akin people of the Samnites, so much that, in the 4th century BC the Osci invoked the help of Rome against the menace of the Samnitic expansionism.

The name Campanians, used by the Romans from the 5th century BC, apparently comes from that of

Ager Campanus

.

During the Roman imperial age, consequently to the Augustan administrative reorganization of the Italian peninsula, the concept of Campania (the "Land of the Campani") was extended far beyond its original limits up to encompassing a much larger territory enclosed inside the southern part of the Regio I Latium et Campania.

Notes

^ Diodorus Siculus, XII.31.

Bibliografia

Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, Italia, omnium terrarum alumna, Officine grafiche Garzanti Milano, Garzanti-Schewiller, 1990¹

[1] Diodorus Siculus, XII.31.

Notes

See also

Bibliografia