Lucania

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Multi-color map of northern Italy
Map of ancient Lucania

Lucania was a historical region of

Bruttium in the south-west, and was at the tip of the peninsula which is now called Calabria. It comprised almost all the modern region of Basilicata, the southern part of the Province of Salerno (the Cilento area) and a northern portion of the Province of Cosenza
.

The precise limits were the river

Laus, which flows from a ridge of the Apennine Mountains
to the Tyrrhenian Sea in an east-west direction, marked part of the border with Bruttium.

Geography

Almost the whole area is occupied by the

Bruttium
.

Just within the frontier of Lucania rises

).

The

Sele), which constitutes the northern boundary, and has two important tributaries in the Calor (Calore Lucano or Calore Salernitano) and the Tanager (Tanagro
or Negro) which joins it from the south.

Etymology

Historians at University of Naples Eastern Studies concluded that the root of the name Lucania is derived from luc, the Osco-Sabellic peoples word for light, which has the same meaning in the Latin idiom. The people that moved from the Osco-Sabellic tribes to occupy the land east of the Sillaro River, which was an area associated with the morning star, Lucifer (Latin for bringer of light). Therefore, Lucania means eastern land or land from which there is light.[1] The study also explains why it is not Greek in origin. As noted in the History section on this page, the Greeks referred to this region of Italy as Oenotria.

History

Antiquity

A mounted Lucani warrior, fresco from a tomb of Paestum, Italy, c. 360 BC

The district of Lucania was so called from the people bearing the name

Oenotria
, which was applied by the Greeks to the southernmost portion of Italy.

The mountainous interior was occupied by the tribes known as

Oscan language. They had a democratic constitution save in time of war, when a dictator
was chosen from among the regular magistrates.

A few

Greek characters from the 4th or 3rd century BC, and some coins with Oscan legends of the 3rd century.[2] The Lucanians gradually conquered the whole country (with the exception of the Greek towns on the coast) from the borders of Samnium and Campania to the southern extremity of Italy. Subsequently the inhabitants of the peninsula, now known as Calabria, broke into insurrection, and under the name of Bruttians
established their independence, after which the Lucanians became confined within the limits already described.

After this we find them engaged in hostilities with the

Venusia (291 BC), Paestum (273), and above all Tarentum
(272).

Subsequently they were sometimes in alliance, but more frequently engaged in hostilities, during the

Social War, in which the Lucanians took part with the Samnites against Rome
(90–88 BC) gave the finishing stroke.

In the time of Strabo the Greek cities on the coast had fallen into insignificance, and owing to the decrease of population and cultivation malaria began to obtain the upper hand. The few towns of the interior were of no importance. A large part of the province was given up to pasture, and the mountains were covered with forests, which abounded in wild boars, bears and wolves. There were some fifteen independent communities, but none of great importance.

For administrative purposes under the

Roman empire, Lucania was always united with the district of the Bruttii, a practice continued by Theodoric.[3] The two together constituted the third region of Augustus
.

Middle Ages

After the fall of the

Byzantine
conquest reintroduced Greeks and Greek culture to the region. In the early 7th, Byzantine rule was cut short as another Germanic people, the
Louis II, part of the Duchy was turned into the independent Principality of Salerno
in 851.

In the late 10th century the Byzantines began to re-enter the region of Lucania forming the

Catapanate of Italy with Salerno being granted autonomy. By the early 11th century the Byzantine revival in Lucania came with both a process of Hellenization and significant Greek migrations from southern and central Calabria and Salento, into regions such as Cilento. Lucania would remain largely Greek till the 12th century when a gradual process of Latinization would occur. By the 14th century, there were few Greek inhabitants as the majority had been assimilated.[4][5][6]

In the mid-11th century, Lucania was conquered by the

Hohenstaufen dynasty. After that the Angevins would take control of Lucania in the mid-13th century before being part of the Kingdom of Aragon in the 14th century after the War of the Sicilian Vespers
.

Cities and towns

A Lucani man riding a chariot, from a tomb in Paestum, Italy, 4th century BC

The towns on the east coast were

Heraclea
, at the mouth of the Aciris; and Sins, on the river of the same name.

Close to its southern frontier stood

Bruttium
.

Of the towns of the interior the most considerable was Potentia, still called Potenza. To the north, near the frontier of Apulia, was Bantia (Aceruntia belonged more properly to Apulia); while due south from Potentia was Grumentum, and still farther in that direction were Nerulum and Muranum.

In the upland valley of the Tanagrus were

Silarus
, were also included in Lucania.

The

Via Appia
and east from Grumentum to the coast at Heraclea.

Later use

The modern name

Byzantine control. During the early 19th century, during the Carbonari revolution
of 1820–21, the region was renamed and divided into Eastern and Western Lucania (Lucania Orientale and Lucania Occidentale). From the latter half of the 19th century some residents campaigned to reinstate that name.

In 1932 the

Fascist regime changed the name to Lucania, as part of its appropriation of symbols from the Roman Empire. After the end of the war and Italy's defeat, the new government restored the name of Basilicata to the province in 1947. In the late 20th century, Lucania was still in vernacular use as a synonym to Basilicata.[7]

Notes

  1. ^ "Come ti chiami? Lucania !!!". 10 February 2016.
  2. ^ see Conway, Italic Dialects, p. II sqq.; Mommsen, C.I.L. x. p. 2I; Roehl, Inscriptiones Graecae Antiquissimae, 547.
  3. ^ Cassiodorus: Chapter 1, Backgrounds and Some Dates Archived 2005-05-10 at the Wayback Machine
  4. . At the end of the twelfth century ... While in Apulia Greeks were in a majority – and indeed present in any numbers at all – only in the Salento peninsula in the extreme south, at the time of the conquest they had an overwhelming preponderance in Lucania and central and southern Calabria, as well as comprising anything up to a third of the population of Sicily, concentrated especially in the north-east of the island, the Val Demone.
  5. . However, the Byzantine revival of the tenth century generated a concomitant process of Hellenization, while Muslim raids in southern Calabria, and instability in Sicily, may also have displaced Greek Christians further north on the mainland. Consequently, zones in northern Calabria, Lucania and central Apulia which were reintegrated into Byzantine control also experienced demographic shifts, and the increasing establishment of immigrant Greek communities. These zones also acted as springboards for Greek migration further north, into regions such as the Cilento and areas around Salerno, which had never been under Byzantine control.
  6. . In Lucania (northern Calabria, Basilicata, and southernmost portion of today's Campania) ... From the late ninth century into the eleventh, Greek-speaking populations and Byzantine temporal power advanced, in stages but by no means always in tandem, out of southern Calabria and the lower Salentine peninsula across Lucania and through much of Apulia as well. By the early eleventh century, Greek settlement had radiated northward and had reached the interior of the Cilento, deep in Salernitan territory. Parts of the central and north-western Salento, recovered early, came to have a Greek majority through immigration, as did parts of Lucania.
  7. p. 11

References