Lucanians

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For other uses, see Lucani (disambiguation).
The Oscan language in the 5th century BC.

The Lucanians (

Latin: Lucani) were an Italic tribe living in Lucania, in what is now southern Italy, who spoke an Oscan language, a member of the Italic languages. Today, the inhabitants of the Basilicata region are still called Lucani, and so is their dialect.[1]

Language and writing

The Lucani spoke a variety of the Umbrian-Oscan language, like their neighbours, the Samnites, who had absorbed the Osci in the 5th century BC. The few Oscan inscriptions and coins in the area that survive from the 4th or 3rd century BC use the Greek alphabet.[2]

History

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

Around the middle of the 5th century BC, the Lucani moved south into

Oenotria, driving the indigenous tribes, known to the Greeks as Oenotrians, Chones, and Lauternoi, into the mountainous interior.[3][4]

The Lucanians were engaged in hostilities with the Greek colony of

Alexander, king of Epirus
who was called in by the Tarentine people to their assistance in 334 BC. In 331, treacherous Lucanian exiles killed Alexander of Epirus.

In 298 they made alliance with Rome,[

Samnite wars
they were sometimes in alliance with Rome but more frequently engaged in hostilities.

The Lucanians and Bruttians laid siege to Thurii in 282 BC and a Roman army sent to its relief under Gaius Fabricius Luscinus defeated them.[5]

When

Social War, in which the Lucanians took part with the Samnites against Rome (91 - 88 BC), gave the finishing stroke.[citation needed
]

In the time of Strabo (63 BC – 24 AD) the Greek cities on the coast had fallen into insignificance[citation needed] 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.

Art

Duel of Lucanian warriors, fresco from a tomb of the 4th century BC.

Lucanian art mainly survives in Lucanian vase painting and paintings from tombs, which the elite commissioned in rather large numbers, like the Etruscans but unlike their Roman and Greek neighbours. There is a good display in the museum at Paestum. A high proportion feature horses, often racing.[6] Vase painting was practiced between about 420 BC and 335 BC, and at its height vases were exported to all Apulia. The painters, some of whom have been assigned notnames, were probably Greek emigres, or trained in Greece - probably Athens to judge by their styles.

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 978-1-905670-03-1
    .
  2. ^ see Conway, Italic Dialects, p. II sqq.; Mommsen, C.I.L. x. p. 2I; Roehl, Inscriptiones Graecae Antiquissimae, 547.
  3. ISBN 978-88-8265-194-7
    .
  4. ISBN 9780143105138
    .
  5. ^ Pliny xxxiv. 6. s. 15; Valerius Maximus 1. 8. § 6
  6. ^ Lucanian painted tombs at Paestum
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lucanians.

External links

  • [1] - Source texts of ancient Greek and Roman authors
  • [2] - Strabo's work The Geography (Geographica). Books 5 and 6 are about Italy (each region has a chapter).
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