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 Province of Caserta, Naples and Low Latium as also most of the inland.[1] Amongst those reconquered cities there were Cumae (taken from the Greeks) and Capua (from the 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 Capua, the leading city of the Capuan League, one of the Oscan main polities. It was used to designate both the inhabitants of the city itself and those of the other federated cities. The surrounding territory was known as 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.
Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, Italia, omnium terrarum alumna, Officine grafiche Garzanti Milano, Garzanti-Schewiller, 19901
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Campania is an administrative region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula, but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the island of Capri. The capital of the Campania region is Naples. As of 2018, the region had a population of around 5,820,000 people, making it Italy's third most populous region, and, with an area of 13,590 km2 (5,247 sq mi), its most densely populated region. Based on its GDP, Campania is also the most economically productive region in southern Italy and the 7th most productive in the whole country. Naples' urban area, which is in Campania, is the eighth most populous in the European Union. The region is home to 10 of the 58 UNESCO sites in Italy, including Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Amalfi Coast and the Historic Centre of Naples. In addition, Campania's Mount Vesuvius is part of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves.
Etruria was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria.
Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain.
The Osci were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the language of the Samnites was called Oscan, the Samnites were never referred to as Osci, nor were the Osci called Samnites.
The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe.
Samnium is a Latin exonym for a region of Southern Italy anciently inhabited by the Samnites. Their own endonyms were Safinim for the country and Safineis for the people. The language of these endonyms and of the population was the Oscan language. However, not all the Samnites spoke Oscan, and not all the Oscan-speakers lived in Samnium.
The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.
The Aurunci were an Italic tribe that lived in southern Italy from around the 1st millennium BC. They were eventually defeated by Rome and subsumed into the Roman Republic during the second half of the 4th century BC.
The Lucanians 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 their dialect.
The (Second) Latin War was a conflict between the Roman Republic and its neighbors, the Latin peoples of ancient Italy. It ended in the dissolution of the Latin League and incorporation of its territory into the Roman sphere of influence, with the Latins gaining partial rights and varying levels of citizenship.
"Ausones", the original Greek form for the Latin "Aurunci", was a name applied by Greek writers to describe various Italic peoples inhabiting the southern and central regions of Italy. The term was used, specifically, to denote the particular tribe which Livy called the Aurunci, but later it was applied to all Italians, and Ausonia became a poetic term, in Greek and Latin, for Italy itself.
The military campaigns of the Samnite Wars were an important stage in Roman expansion in the Italian Peninsula.
Etruscan history is the written record of Etruscan civilization compiled mainly by Greek and Roman authors. Apart from their inscriptions, from which information mainly of a sociological character can be extracted, the Etruscans left no surviving history of their own, nor is there any mention in the Roman authors that any was ever written. Remnants of Etruscan writings are almost exclusively concerned with religion.
The socii or foederati were confederates of Rome and formed one of the three legal denominations in Roman Italy (Italia) along with the Roman citizens (Cives) and the Latini. The Latini, who were simultaneously special confederates and semi-citizens, should not be equated with the homonymous Italic people of which Rome was part. This tripartite organisation lasted from the Roman expansion in Italy to the Social War, when all peninsular inhabitants were awarded Roman citizenship.
Campani may refer to:
The Daunians were an Iapygian tribe that inhabited northern Apulia in classical antiquity. Two other Iapygian tribes, the Peucetians and the Messapians, inhabited central and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke the Messapic language, but had developed separate archaeological cultures by the seventh century BC.
The Sidicini were one of the Italic peoples of ancient Italy. Their territory extended northward from their capital, Teanum Sidicinum, along the valley of the Liri river up to Fregellae, covering around 3,000 square kilometres in total. They were neighbors of the Samnites and Campanians, and allies of the Ausones and Aurunci. Their language was a part of the Osco-Umbrian linguistic family.
Ancient Campania originally indicated the territory of the ancient city of Capua in the Roman period, and later also the plains of the various neighboring municipalities. It was a very large territory when compared with the other Italic cities of the Roman and pre-Roman period.
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