Euganei

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The Euganei (fr. Lat. Euganei, Euganeorum; cf. Gr. εὐγενής (eugenēs) 'well-born') were a semi-mythical Proto-Italic ethnic group that dwelt an area among Adriatic Sea and Rhaetian Alps. Subsequently, they were driven by the Adriatic Veneti to an area between the river Adige and Lake Como, where they remained until the early Roman Empire. [1]

Latin Indo-European language of the Italic family

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets and ultimately from the Phoenician alphabet.

Greek language language spoken in Greece, Cyprus and Southern Albania

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It has the longest documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning more than 3000 years of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Proto-Italic language

The Proto-Italic language is the ancestor of the Italic languages, including notably Latin and thus its descendants, the Romance languages. It is not directly attested in writing, but has been reconstructed to some degree through the comparative method. Proto-Italic descended from the earlier Proto-Indo-European language.

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They may have been a Pre-Indo-European people, ethnically related to the Ingauni, as suggested by the similarity of the names. According to Pliny the Elder the Stoni people from Trentino were of the same stock as the Euganei.

Neolithic Europe period when Neolithic technology was present in Europe

Neolithic Europe is the period when Neolithic technology was present in Europe, roughly between 7000 BCE and c. 1700 BCE. The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year - this is called Neolithic Expansion.

Pliny the Elder Roman military commander and writer

Pliny the Elder was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and friend of emperor Vespasian.

Trentino Autonomous province of Italy

Trentino, officially the Autonomous Province of Trento, is an autonomous province of Italy, in the country's far north. Trento and South Tyrol constitute the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, an autonomous region under the constitution. The province is divided into 177 comuni (municipalities). Its capital is the city of Trento. The province covers an area of more than 6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi), with a total population of about 540,000. Trentino is renowned for its mountains, such as the Dolomites, which are part of the Alps.

Cato the Elder, in the lost book of Origines, counted among the major tribes of the Euganeans; the Triumplini of Val Trompia and the Camunni of Val Camonica. [2]

Cato the Elder politician, writer and economist (0234-0149)

Cato the Elder, born Marcus Porcius Cato and also known as Cato the Censor, Cato the Wise, and Cato the Ancient, was a Roman senator and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write history in Latin.

The Val Trompia is a slightly more than 50 km long valley in the Province of Brescia, northern Italy. It consists of the valleys of the river Mella and its tributaries, north of the city of Brescia. It is situated between Val Camonica, Val Sabbia and Lake Iseo.

Camunni

The Camuni or Camunni were an ancient population located in Val Camonica during the Iron Age ; the Latin name Camunni was attributed to them by the authors of the 1st century. They are also called ancient Camuni, to distinguish them from the current inhabitants of the valley. The Camunni were among the greatest producers of rock art in Europe; their name is linked to the famous rock engravings of Valcamonica.

According to Livy, they were defeated by the Adriatic Veneti and the Trojans. Their descendants settled west of the Athesis (Adige) river, around the lakes Sebinus, Edrus and Benacus, where they occupied 34 towns, which were admitted by Augustus to the rights of Latin municipalities.

Livy Roman historian

Titus Livius – simply rendered as Livy in English – was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people – Ab Urbe Condita Libri – covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and even in friendship with Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history.

Adriatic Veneti

The Veneti were an Indo-European people who inhabited northeastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of Veneto.

Troy Homeric ancient city in northwest Asia Minor

Troy was a city in the far northwest of the region known in late Classical antiquity as Asia Minor, now known as Anatolia in modern Turkey, just south of the southwest mouth of the Dardanelles strait and northwest of Mount Ida. The present-day location is known as Hisarlik. It was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. Metrical evidence from the Iliad and the Odyssey suggests that the name Ἴλιον (Ilion) formerly began with a digamma: Ϝίλιον (Wilion); this is also supported by the Hittite name for what is thought to be the same city, Wilusa.

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Paphlagonia geographical object

Paphlagonia was an ancient area on the Black Sea coast of north central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus to the east, and separated from Phrygia by a prolongation to the east of the Bithynian Olympus. According to Strabo, the river Parthenius formed the western limit of the region, and it was bounded on the east by the Halys river. The name Paphlagonia is derived in the legends from Paphlagon, a son of Phineus.

The Camunic language is an extinct language that was spoken in the 1st millennium BC in the Valcamonica and the Valtellina, both of the Central Alps, considered a Pre-Indo-European language.

Lepontii historical ethnical group

The Lepontii were an ancient Celtic people occupying portions of Rhaetia in the Alps during the late Bronze Age/Iron Age. Recent archeological excavations and their association with the Golasecca culture and Canegrate culture(13th century BC) point to a Celtic affiliation. From the analysis of their language and the place names of the old Lepontic areas, it was hypothesized that these people represent a layer similar to that Celtic but previous to the Gallic penetration in the Po valley.

Cisalpine Gaul Roman province

Cisalpine Gaul was the part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Conquered by the Roman Republic in the 220s BC, it was a Roman province from c. 81 BC until 42 BC, when it was merged into Roman Italy. Until that time, it was considered part of Gaul, precisely that part of Gaul on the "hither side of the Alps", as opposed to Transalpine Gaul.

The Vistula Veneti were an Indo-European ethno-linguistic tribal group that inhabited the eastern regions along the Vistula river and the coastal areas around the Bay of Gdańsk. The term has been used in modern times to distinguish the Veneti, who lived on the Central European plains, from the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes around them, and other Veneti tribes elsewhere, such as the Adriatic Veneti, the Veneti of Armorica, and the Paphlagonian Veneti. Roman and Byzantine historians described the Vistula Veneti as the ancestors of Sclaveni, who were known to the ancient writers of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD under the name of Veneti.

Adige river in Northern Italy

The Adige is the second longest river in Italy after the Po, rising in the Alps in the province of South Tyrol near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland, flowing 410 kilometres (250 mi) through most of North-East Italy to the Adriatic Sea.

Insubres

The Insubres or Insubri were a Gaulish population settled in Insubria, in what is now the Italian region of Lombardy. They were the founders of Mediolanum (Milan). Though completely Gaulish at the time of Roman conquest, they were the result of the fusion of pre-existing Ligurian and Celtic population with Gaulish tribes.

Venetian wine is produced in Veneto, a highly productive wine region in north-eastern Italy.

Adria was a former channel of the Po river delta, passing by the town of Adria, that ceased in the 1st century BC.

Prehistoric Italy

The prehistory of Italy began in the Paleolithic period, when the Homo species colonized the Italian territory for the first time, and ended in the Iron Age, when the first written records appeared in the Insular Italy.

The Carni were a tribe of the Eastern Alps in classical antiquity, settling in the mountains separating Noricum and Venetia.

Este culture archaeological culture

The Este culture or Atestine culture was a Iron Age culture existing from the late Italian Bronze Age to the Roman period. It was located in the present territory of Veneto in Italy and derived from the earlier and more extensive Proto-Villanovan culture. It is also called "civilization of situlas", or paleo-venetic.

Rhaetian people historical ethnical group

The Raeti were a confederation of Alpine tribes, whose language and culture may have derived, at least in part, from the Etruscans. From not later than ca. 500 BC, they inhabited the central parts of present-day Switzerland, Tyrol in Austria, the Alpine regions of northeastern Italy and Germany south of the Danube.

Carlo Battisti was an Italian linguist and actor, famed for his starring role in Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D..

Castellieri culture

The Castellieri culture developed in Istria during the Mid-Bronze Age, and later expanded into Friuli, Istria, Dalmatia and the neighbouring areas. It lasted for more than a millennium, from the 15th century BC until the Roman conquest in the 3rd century BC. It takes its name from the fortified boroughs, Castellieri, which characterized the culture.

Ferdinando Morozzi was an Italian mathematician, cartographer and architect.

References

  1. G. Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli italiani, Tomo II, Firenze 1832, p. 24.
  2. Ibidem, p. 32.

Bibliography

See also