Picenum was a region of ancient Italy. The name was assigned by the Romans, who conquered and incorporated it into the Roman Republic. Picenum became Regio V in the Augustan territorial organisation of Roman Italy. It is now in Marche and the northern part of Abruzzo.
The Piceni or Picentes were the native population of Picenum, but they were not of uniform ethnicity. They maintained a sanctuary to the Sabine goddess Cupra in Cupra Marittima.
Picenum was also the birthplace of such Roman notables as Pompey the Great and his father, Pompeius Strabo.
Picenum and the Picentes were described in some detail by the Roman geographers:[ who? ]
Strabo places Picenum between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea from the mouth of the Aesis River southward to Castrum at the mouth of the Truentinus River, some 800 stadia, which is 148 km (92 mi) using 185 m/stadion. For coastal cities he includes from north to south Ancona, Auxumum, Septempeda (San Severino Marche), Pneuentia, Potentia, Firmum Picenum with port at Castellum (Porto di Fermo), Cupra Maritima (Cupra Marittima and Grottammare), Truentum on the Truentinus (Tronto) and finally Castrum Novum and Matrinum on the Matrinus (Piomba), south of Silvi in Abruzzo. Strabo also mentions Adria (Atri, Italy) and Asculum Picenum (Ascoli Piceno) in the interior. The width of Picenum inland varies irregularly, he says. [1]
Picenum was first settled at the beginning of the Iron Age (1200 BC). [2]
The Liburnians had colonies on the western Adriatic coast in Picenum from the beginning of the Iron Age and until the 6th century Liburninan naval supremacy meant both political and economical authority in the Adriatic.[ citation needed ]
In 390 BC the Senoni Gauls invaded Italy from the north and occupied Picenum north of the Esino river. The archaeological evidence shows groups of Senones settled much further south of this river, in the Macerata area and even in the Ascoli area, in sites such as Filottrano, San Genesio, Matelica, Offida. In 283 BC the Romans expelled the Senones and annexed Picenum down to Ancona when it became the Ager Gallicus , part of the Ager publicus (Roman state land).
In 268 BC the Romans defeated the Picentes after they had rebelled. [3] Part of the population was deported and others were given Roman citizenship without the right to vote. Thus, Picenum was annexed, except for the city of Asculum, which was considered an allied city. To keep it under control, the colony of Firmum was established nearby in 264 BC.
According to Polybius, [4] during the consulship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (232 BC), "the Romans divided among their citizens the territory in Gaul known as Picenum, from which they had ejected the Senones when they conquered them".
Picenum sided with Rome against Hannibal during the Punic Wars. It also became a Roman base during the Social War. Some Picentes remained loyal to Rome in the war, while others fought against them for the right of Roman citizenship. [5] All Picentes were granted full Roman citizenship after the war.
In the Edict of Diocletian, it was mentioned that the wine from Picenum was considered the most expensive wine, together with Falerno. [6] Vinum Hadrianum was produced in Picenum, [7] in the city of Hatria or Hadria, the old name of Atri. This is also the same wine that Pliny considered one of the highly-rated wines, along with a few others. [8]
Excavations in Picenum have given much insight into the region during the Iron Age. Excavated tombs in Novilara of the Molaroni and Servici cemeteries show that the Piceni laid bodies in the ground wrapped in garments they had worn in life. [9]
Warriors were buried with a helmet, weapons and vessels for food and drinks. Buried beads, bone, fibulae and amber seem to demonstrate that there was an active trade in the ninth and perhaps tenth centuries on the Adriatic coast, especially in the fields of amber and beads of glass paste. In women’s graves there is a large abundance of ornaments made of bronze and iron. [10]
Origins of these items may also show that the Piceni may have looked to the south and east for development. [11]
The warrior tombs seem to show that the Piceni were a war-like people. Every man’s grave contained more or less a complete outfit of a warrior, with the most frequent weapon being a spear. Piceni swords appear to be imported from the Balkans. [12]
South Picene, written in an unusual version of the Italic alphabet, has been identified as a Sabellic language that is neither Oscan nor Umbrian.
The undeciphered North Picene, also written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet, is probably not closely unrelated to South Picene. At present, it is generally assumed not to be an Italic language (although it may have belonged to another branch of the Indo-European languages).
As reported by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, 24 cities were placed in Regio V: [13]
Latin Name | Modern Name | Modern Region | Tribù |
---|---|---|---|
Ancona | Ancona | Marche | Lemonia |
Asculum | Ascoli Piceno | Marche | Fabia |
Auximum | Osimo | Marche | Velina |
Beregra | near Civitella del Tronto or Montorio al Vomano | Abruzzo | |
Castrum Novum | near Giulianova | Abruzzo | Papiria |
Castrum Truentinum | Martinsicuro | Abruzzo | |
Cingulum | Cingoli | Marche | Velina |
Cluana | Civitanova Marche | Marche | |
Cupra Maritima | near Cupra Marittima (Grottammare) | Marche | Velina |
Cupra Montana | near Sant'Eleuterio of Cupramontana | Marche | Velina |
Falerio | near Falerone | Marche | Velina |
Firmum Picenum [14] | Fermo | Marche | Velina |
Hadria | Atri | Abruzzo | Maecia |
Interamnia | Teramo | Abruzzo | Velina |
Novana | unknown, probably in the Aso valley | Marche | |
Numana | Numana | Marche | |
Pausulae | near San Claudio al Chienti, Corridonia | Marche | Velina |
Planina | near San Vittore di Cingoli | Marche | Velina |
Potentia | near Santa Maria a Potenza, Porto Recanati | Marche | Velina |
Ricina | Villa Potenza, Macerata | Marche | Velina |
Septempeda | San Severino Marche | Marche | Velina |
Tolentinum | Tolentino | Marche | Velina |
Trea | near Treia | Marche | Velina |
Urbs Salvia | near Urbisaglia | Marche | Velina |
Marche, in English sometimes referred to as the Marches, is one of the twenty regions of Italy. The region is located in the central area of the country, and has a population of about 1.5 million people, being the thirteenth largest region in the country by number of inhabitants. The region's capital and largest city is Ancona.
Ascoli Piceno is a comune (municipality) and capital of the province of Ascoli Piceno, in the Marche region of Italy.
Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo was a Roman general and politician, who served as consul in 89 BC. He is often referred to in English as Pompey Strabo, to distinguish him from his son, the famous Pompey the Great, or from Strabo the geographer.
Falerone is a town and comune in the province of Fermo, in the Italian region of the Marche, southeast of Urbisaglia.
The province of Ascoli Piceno is a province in the Marche region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Ascoli Piceno, and the province is bordered by the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Province of Fermo to the north, and it faces the regions of Umbria and Abruzzo (Abruzzi) to the south. There are 33 comuni in the province, see Comunes of the Province of Ascoli Piceno.
The Province of Pesaro and Urbino is a province in the Marche region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Pesaro. It also borders the state of San Marino. The province is surrounded by San Marino and Emilia Romagna in the north, Umbria and Tuscany in the west, Ancona in the south and the Adriatic Sea on the east. The province has an enclave of the Umbrian commune of Citta' di Castello named Monte Ruperto. The province is also known as "Riviera of Hills". It is mostly covered by hills and is popular for its beaches.
The Senones or Senonii were an ancient Gallic tribe dwelling in the Seine basin, around present-day Sens, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Regio VI Umbria is the name for one of the 11 administrative regions into which the emperor Augustus divided Italy. The main source for the regions is the Historia Naturalis of Pliny the Elder, who informs his readers he is basing the geography of Italy on the descriptio Italiae, "division of Italy," made by Augustus. The Regio Sexta is called Umbria complexa agrumque Gallicam citra Ariminium, "Umbria including the Gallic country this side of Rimini."
Italia, also referred to as Roman Italy, was the homeland of the ancient Romans. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to Aeneas of Troy and his descendants, Romulus and Remus, who were the founders of Rome. Aside from the legendary accounts, Rome was an Italic city-state that changed its form of government from Kingdom to Republic and then grew within the context of a peninsula dominated by the Gauls, Ligures, Veneti, Camunni and Histri in the North, the Etruscans, Latins, Falisci, Picentes and Umbri tribes in the Centre, and the Iapygian tribes, the Oscan tribes and Greek colonies in the South.
Fermo[ˈfermo]listen (help·info) is a town and comune of the Marche, Italy, in the Province of Fermo.
The Battle of Arretium, which was probably fought in 284 BC, is a poorly documented event in the history of the Roman Republic because it occurred in a period for which some of the books of the History of Rome by Livy, the most thorough ancient historian for early Rome, have been lost. The battle is only explicitly referred to in a text by Polybius, the ancient Greek historian, which does not give much detail and puts it in the context of other events. A text by Appian talks about these events, but does not make any explicit reference to the Battle of Arretium. It was fought between the Romans and the Gauls of northern Italy, who may have been from the Senone tribe.
The second Battle of Lake Vadimo was fought in 283 BC between Rome and the combined forces of the Etruscans and the Gallic tribes of the Boii and the Senones. The Roman army was led by consul Publius Cornelius Dolabella. The result of the battle was a Roman victory.
South Picene is an extinct Italic language belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to the North Picene language, which is not understood and therefore unclassified. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearly Indo-European. The discovery in 1983 that two of the apparently redundant punctuation marks were in reality simplified letters led to an incremental improvement in their understanding and a first translation in 1985. Difficulties remain. It may represent a third branch of Sabellic, along with Oscan and Umbrian, or the whole Sabellic linguistic area may be best regarded as a linguistic continuum. The paucity of evidence from most of the 'minor dialects' contributes to these difficulties.
North Picene, also known as North Picenian or Northern Picene, is a supposed ancient language, which may have been spoken in part of central-eastern Italy. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions dating from the 1st millennium BC, three of them no more than small broken fragments. It is written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet. While its texts are easily transliterated, none of them have been translated so far. It is not possible to determine whether it is related to any other known language. Despite the use by modern scholars of a similar name, it does not appear that North Picene is closely related to South Picene, and they may not be related at all. The total number of words in the inscriptions is about 60. It is not even certain that the inscriptions are all in one language. A recent study of the techniques used on the stone and other considerations have led to the conclusion that all supposed North Picene inscriptions are in fact forgeries created in the 1800s.
Atri is a comune in the Province of Teramo in the Abruzzo region of Italy. Atri is the setting of the poem The Bell of Atri by American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Its name is the origin of the name of the Emperor Hadrian, whose family came from the town.
Cupra Marittima is in the Province of Ascoli Piceno in the Italian region Marche, located about 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Ancona and about 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Ascoli Piceno.
Monte Rinaldo is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Fermo in the Marche region of Italy, located about 30 km (19 mi) north of Ascoli Piceno and 25 km (16 mi) west of Fermo.
The Ager Gallicus was the territory in northern Picenum that had been occupied by the Senone Gauls and was conquered by Rome in 284 BC or 283 BC, either after the Battle of Arretium or the Battle of Lake Vadimon.
The Picentes or Piceni or Picentini were an ancient Italic people who lived from the 9th to the 3rd century BC in the area between the Foglia and Aterno rivers, bordered to the west by the Apennines and to the east by the Adriatic coast. Their territory, known as Picenum, therefore included all of today's Marche and the northern part of Abruzzo.
The Battle of Silva Litana was an ambush that took place in a forest 75 miles northwest of the Roman city of Ariminum during the Second Punic War in 216 BC. The Gallic Boii surprised and destroyed a Roman army of 25,000 men under the consul-elect Lucius Postumius Albinus and destroyed the Roman army, with only ten men surviving the ambush, a few prisoners were taken by the Gauls and Postumius was killed, his corpse was decapitated and his skull was covered with gold and used as a ceremonial cup by the Boii. News of this military disaster, reaching Rome probably after the election of consuls for 215 BC in Spring 215 BC or after the defeat at Cannae in the fall of 216 BC, triggered a renewed panic in Rome and forced the Romans to postpone military operations against the Gauls until the conclusion of the Second Punic War. Rome decided to focus on defeating Hannibal and sent only two legions to guard against any possible Gallic attack, however, the Boii and Insubres did not attack the Romans to exploit their victory. Cisalpine Gaul remained in relative peace until 207 BC, when Hasdrubal Barca arrived in Cisapline Gaul with his army from Spain.