List of ancient peoples of Italy

Last updated

Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy Iron Age Italy.svg
Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy

This list of ancient peoples living in Italy summarises the many different Italian populations that existed in antiquity. Among them, the Romans succeeded in Romanizing the entire Italian peninsula following the Roman expansion in Italy, which provides the time-window in which the names of the remaining ancient Italian peoples first appear in documentation. Many names are exonyms assigned by the ancient writers of works in ancient Greek and Latin, while others are scholarly inventions.

Contents

Nearly all of these peoples and tribes spoke Indo-European languages: Italics, Celts, Ancient Greeks, and tribes likely occupying various intermediate positions between these language groups. On the other hand, some Italian peoples (such as the Rhaetians, Camuni, Etruscans) likely spoke non- or pre-Indo-European languages. In addition, peoples speaking languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, specifically the largely Semitic Phoenicians and Carthaginians, settled and colonized parts of western and southern Sardinia and western Sicily. [1]

Speakers of non-Indo-European languages

Ancient Sardinian and Corsican tribes described by the Romans. Etnie Nuragiche.jpg
Ancient Sardinian and Corsican tribes described by the Romans.

Scholars believe - though sometimes on the basis of scanty evidence - that the following peoples spoke non-Indo-European languages. Some of them were Pre-Indo-Europeans or Paleo-Europeans while, with regard to some others, Giacomo Devoto proposed the definition of Peri-Indo-European (i.e. everything that has hybrid characters between Indo-European and non-Indo-European). [2]

Sardinians

Tyrrhenians

The Tyrrhenians were the Etruscans and their linguistic relatives.

Terracotta statue of a young woman, late 4th-early 3rd century B.C., Etruscan Terracotta Femme etrusque (Terracotta).jpg
Terracotta statue of a young woman, late 4th–early 3rd century B.C., Etruscan Terracotta
Etruscan terracotta head Etruscan terra cotta head of either Catha or Leucothea.jpg
Etruscan terracotta head
Tarquinia Tomb of the Leopards Tarquinia Tomb of the Leopards.jpg
Tarquinia Tomb of the Leopards

Others (classification uncertain)

Speakers of Indo-European languages

Italo-Celtic

Italic and Celtic languages are commonly grouped together on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. This could imply that they are descended from a common ancestor and/or Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic developed in close proximity over a long period of time.

Italic

Speakers of Italic languages included:

The map shows the most important archaeological sites of Sicily related to pre-Hellenic cultures, as well as the possible extent of the cultures of the Elymians, Sicani and Sicels. Sicily prehellenic topographic map.svg
The map shows the most important archaeological sites of Sicily related to pre-Hellenic cultures, as well as the possible extent of the cultures of the Elymians, Sicani and Sicels.
Samnite soldiers from a tomb frieze in Nola 4th century BC. Samnite soldiers from a tomb frieze in Nola 4th century BCE.jpg
Samnite soldiers from a tomb frieze in Nola 4th century BC.
The Warrior of Capestrano, a South Picene statue Guerriero di capestrano, da capestrano, 600-550 ac ca. 02.jpg
The Warrior of Capestrano , a South Picene statue

Celts

The Celts of the Italian peninsula included,

Map of Cisalpine Gaul showing in blue the approximate distributions of Celtic populations in the area during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Gallia Cisalpina-en.svg
Map of Cisalpine Gaul showing in blue the approximate distributions of Celtic populations in the area during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.

Ligures

A reproduction of a Ligure helmet Elmo guerriero pulica.jpg
A reproduction of a Ligure helmet

The Ligures, who may have spoken Pre-Indo-European [35] or an Indo-European language, [36] were:

Greeks

Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy (the so-called "Magna Graecia") Magna Graecia ancient colonies and dialects-eu.svg
Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy (the so-called "Magna Graecia")

Sometimes referred in ancient sources as Pelasgi, [37] the Ancient Greeks of the Italian peninsula included,

Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th-5th century BC Femmes peucetes dansant, fresque.jpg
Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th-5th century BC

Others (classification uncertain)

Prehistoric archeological cultures

The specific identities or names of the tribes or groups of peoples that practiced these pre-Roman archeological cultures are mostly unknown. The posited existence of these archeological cultures is based on archeological assemblages of artifacts that share common traits and are found within a certain region and originate within a certain prehistoric period. Therefore, many of these archeological cultures may not necessarily correspond to a specific group of ancient people and, in fact, may have been shared among various groups of ancient peoples. The extent to which an archeological culture is representative of a particular cohesive ancient group of people is open for debate; many of these cultures may be the product of a single ancient Italian tribe or civilization (e.g. Latial culture), while others may have been spread among different groups of ancient Italian peoples and even outside of Italy. For example, Latial culture is believed to be the product specifically of the Ancient Latin tribe; the Canegrate culture and Golasecca culture have been associated with various ancient proto-Celtic, Celtic and Ligure tribes including the Lepontii, Orobii, and Insubres, while other archeological cultures may have been present among multiple groups throughout and beyond the Italian peninsula.

Incineration and inhumation in Iron Age Italy Italy Iron Age incineration inhumation.svg
Incineration and inhumation in Iron Age Italy

Neolithic

Copper Age

Bronze Age

Nuraghe Santu Antine in Torralba Nuraghe Santu Antine 02.jpg
Nuraghe Santu Antine in Torralba
Archaeological finds of Canegrate culture Ritrovamenti Cultura di Canegrate.JPG
Archaeological finds of Canegrate culture

Iron Age

Genetics

Detail of fresco from the Lucanian tomb, 4th century BC Return of the warrior. Detail of Lucanian tomb.jpg
Detail of fresco from the Lucanian tomb, 4th century BC

A genetic study published in Science in November 2019 examined the remains of six Latin males buried near Rome between 900 BC and 200 BC. They carried the paternal haplogroups R-M269, T-L208, R-311, R-PF7589 and R-P312 (two samples), and the maternal haplogroups H1aj1a, T2c1f, H2a, U4a1a, H11a and H10. A female from the preceding Proto-Villanovan culture carried the maternal haplogroups U5a2b. [41] These examined individuals were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of ca. 25-35% steppe ancestry. [42] Overall, the genetic differentiation between the Latins, Etruscans and the preceding proto-villanovan population of Italy was found to be insignificant. [43]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italic languages</span> Branch of the Indo-European language family

The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient Italic languages was Latin, the official language of ancient Rome, which conquered the other Italic peoples before the common era. The other Italic languages became extinct in the first centuries AD as their speakers were assimilated into the Roman Empire and shifted to some form of Latin. Between the third and eighth centuries AD, Vulgar Latin diversified into the Romance languages, which are the only Italic languages natively spoken today, while Literary Latin also survived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etruscan civilization</span> Pre-Roman civilization of ancient Italy

The Etruscan civilization was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.

The Old Italic scripts are a family of ancient writing systems used on the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, which was the immediate ancestor of the Latin alphabet used by more than 100 languages today, including English. The runic alphabets used in Northern Europe are believed to have been separately derived from one of these alphabets by the 2nd century AD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etruria</span> Region of Central Italy

Etruria was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that flourished in the area from around the 8th century BC until they were assimilated into the Roman Republic in the 4th century BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lepontii</span>

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 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. The suggestion has been made that the Lepontii may have been celticized Ligurians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ligurian (ancient language)</span> Extinct unclassified language of northwest Italy and southeast France

The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and current south-eastern France known as the Ligures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italians</span> Nation and ethnic group native to Italy

Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common core of culture, history, ancestry, and often the usage of Italian language or regional Italian languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cisalpine Gaul</span> Roman province

Cisalpine Gaul was the name given, especially during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, to a region of land inhabited by Celts (Gauls), corresponding to what is now most of northern Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ligures</span> Ancient ethnic group in Northern Italy

The Ligures or Ligurians were an ancient people after whom Liguria, a region of present-day north-western Italy, is named.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lepontic language</span> Ancient Celtic language

Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is attested in inscriptions found in an area centered on Lugano, Switzerland, and including the Lake Como and Lake Maggiore areas of Italy. Being a Celtic language, its name could derive from Proto-Celtic *leikwontio-.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villanovan culture</span> Iron age culture in Italy

The Villanovan culture, regarded as the earliest phase of the Etruscan civilization, was the earliest Iron Age culture of Italy. It directly followed the Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture which branched off from the Urnfield culture of Central Europe. The name derives from the locality of Villanova, a fraction of the municipality of Castenaso in the Metropolitan City of Bologna where, between 1853 and 1855, Giovanni Gozzadini found the remains of a necropolis, bringing to light 193 tombs, of which there were 179 cremations and 14 inhumations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italic peoples</span> Ethnolinguistic group

The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golasecca culture</span> Archaeological culture in Northern Italy

The Golasecca culture was a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age culture in northern Italy, whose type-site was excavated at Golasecca in the province of Varese, Lombardy, where, in the area of Monsorino at the beginning of the 19th century, Abbot Giovanni Battista Giani made the first findings of about fifty graves with pottery and metal objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etruscan history</span>

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, we do not have any historical works written by the Etruscans themselves, nor is there any mention in the Roman authors that any was ever written. Remnants of Etruscan writings are almost exclusively concerned with religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistoric Italy</span> Prehistory of Italy

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

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etruscan origins</span> Theories on the ancient Italian civilization

In classical antiquity, several theses were elaborated on the origin of the Etruscans from the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been already established for several centuries in its territories, that can be summarized into three main hypotheses. The first is the autochthonous development in situ out of the Villanovan culture, as claimed by the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus who described the Etruscans as indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria. The second is a migration from the Aegean Sea, as claimed by two Greek historians: Herodotus, who described them as a group of immigrants from Lydia in Anatolia, and Hellanicus of Lesbos who claimed that the Tyrrhenians were the Pelasgians originally from Thessaly, Greece, who entered Italy at the head of the Adriatic sea in Northern Italy. The third hypothesis was reported by Livy and Pliny the Elder, and puts the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and other populations living in the Alps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latins (Italic tribe)</span> Italic tribe in ancient antiquity

The Latins, sometimes known as the Latials or Latians, were an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. From about 1000 BC, the Latins inhabited the small region known to the Romans as Old Latium, that is, the area between the river Tiber and the promontory of Mount Circeo 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Rome. Following the Roman expansion, the Latins spread into the Latium adiectum, inhabited by Osco-Umbrian peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleo-Sardinian language</span> Extinct language isolate indigenous to the island of Sardinia

Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or Nuragic, is an extinct language, or perhaps set of languages, spoken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during the Nuragic era. Starting from the Roman conquest with the establishment of a specific province, a process of language shift took place, wherein Latin came slowly to be the only language spoken by the islanders. Paleo-Sardinian is thought to have left traces in the island's onomastics as well as toponyms, which appear to preserve grammatical suffixes, and a number of words in the modern Sardinian language.

References

  1. "Sicilian Peoples: The Carthaginians - Best of Sicily Magazine - Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Hanibal, Hamilcar, Punic Wars, Punic Language, Carthage, Palermo, Zis, Sis, Panormos, Solus, Motya, Motia, Mozia". www.bestofsicily.com. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  2. Giacomo Devoto, Gli antichi Italici, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1931.
  3. "sardi in "Dizionario di Storia"". www.treccani.it.
  4. "SARDI in "Enciclopedia Italiana"". www.treccani.it.
  5. "ARCHIVIO. Nuovo studio dell'archeologo Ugas: "È certo, i nuragici erano gli Shardana"". Sardiniapost.it. February 3, 2017.
  6. "SP INTERVISTA>GIOVANNI UGAS: SHARDANA". www.sardiniapoint.it.
  7. 1 2 "LacusCurtius • Ptolemy's Geography — Book III, Chapter 3". penelope.uchicago.edu.
  8. Ugas, Giovanni (2006). L'alba dei nuraghi (in Italian). Fabula Editore. p. 34. ISBN   978-88-89661-00-0.
  9. Goring, Elizabeth (2004). Treasures from Tuscany: the Etruscan legacy. Edinburgh: National Museums Scotland Enterprises Limited. p. 13. ISBN   978-1901663907.
  10. Leighton, Robert (2004). Tarquinia. An Etruscan City. Duckworth Archaeological Histories Series. London: Duckworth Press. p. 32. ISBN   0-7156-3162-4.
  11. Camporeale, Giovannangelo, ed. (2001). The Etruscans Outside Etruria. Translated by Hartmann, Thomas Michael. Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications (published 2004).
  12. Etruria campana
  13. Strabo. Geography . Book V, Chapter IV. Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University. Archived from the original on 2 September 2022. Retrieved 2 September 2022.
  14. Francesco Belsito (2013). Storia di Nocera. Monumenti, personaggi, leggende. Angri, Gaia.
  15. Harald Haarmann (2014). "Ethnicity and Language in the Ancient Mediterranean". A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 17–33. ISBN   9781444337341.
  16. Markey, Thomas (2008). Shared Symbolics, Genre Diffusion, Token Perception and Late Literacy in North-Western Europe. NOWELE.
  17. Piceni popolo d'Europa, Vv.Aa., Edizioni De Luca, Roma, 1999, p. 139
  18. Hazlitt, William. The Classical Gazetteer (1851), p. 297.
  19. Pietrina Anello. "I Sicani nel IV secolo a.C.". Atti del convegno di studi su Diodoro Siculo e la Sicilia indigena (in Italian) (2005): 150.
  20. "Liguri". Enciclopedie on line. Treccani.it (in Italian). Rome: Treccani -Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. 2011. Le documentazioni sulla lingua dei Liguri non ne permettono una classificazione linguistica certa (preindoeuropeo di tipo mediterraneo? Indoeuropeo di tipo celtico?).
  21. "Ligurian language". Britannica.com. 2014-12-16. Retrieved 2015-08-29.
  22. Villar, cit., pp. 447-482.
  23. Hartmann, Markus (2017). "Siculian". In Klein, Jared; Joseph, Brian; Fritz, Matthias (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Vol. 3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 1854. doi:10.1515/9783110542431-026. ISBN   978-3-11-054243-1. S2CID   242076323.
  24. Storia, vita, costumi, religiosità dei Veneti antichi at www.venetoimage.com (in Italian). Accessed on 2009-08-18.
  25. "L'alfabeto umbro su Omniglot.com". 16 January 2009.
  26. Aristotle (1932). "vii.10". Politics.
  27. Pliny the Elder. "Book III, Chapter 12". Natural History.
  28. Livy, Ab urbe condita , 2.22
  29. Strabo (1917). "Book V, Chapter 4, Section 2". Geography.
  30. G. Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli italiani, Tomo II, Firenze 1832, p. 24.
  31. Kruta, Venceslas (1991). The Celts. Thames and Hudson. pp. 52–56.
  32. Stifter, David (2008). Old Celtic Languages (PDF). pp. 24–37.
  33. "LinguistList: Lepontic". Archived from the original on 2011-12-22. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  34. John T. Koch (ed.) Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia ABC-CLIO (2005) ISBN   978-1-85109-440-0
  35. "Liguri". Enciclopedie on line. Treccani.it (in Italian). Rome: Treccani -Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. 2011. Le documentazioni sulla lingua dei Liguri non ne permettono una classificazione linguistica certa (preindoeuropeo di tipo mediterraneo? Indoeuropeo di tipo celtico?).
  36. "Ligurian language". Britannica.com. 2014-12-16. Retrieved 2015-08-29.
  37. Herodotus, Histories , ΚΛΕΙΩ 1.56.2: μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἐφρόντιζε ἱστορέων τοὺς ἂν Ἑλλήνων δυνατωτάτους ἐόντας προσκτήσαιτο φίλους. ἱστορέων δὲ εὕρισκε Λακεδαιμονίους τε καὶ Ἀθηναίους προέχοντας, τοὺς μὲν τοῦ Δωρικοῦ γένεος, τοὺς δὲ τοῦ Ἰωνικοῦ. ταῦτα γὰρ ἦν τὰ προκεκριμένα, ἐόντα τὸ ἀρχαῖον τὸ μὲν Πελασγικόν
    Translation: Then he set out to examine who among the "Greeks" were the strongest, whom he could make friends with. And searching, he found that the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians were distinguished, the former among the Dorians, the latter among the Ionians. Because these nations were the best known, being in the old days the last Pelasgian
  38. "IAPIGI" (in Italian). Retrieved 3 July 2023.
  39. "Gli Elimi: storia e archeologia di Segesta, Erice, Entella". www.arkeomania.com. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
  40. Aloni, Antonio; Ornaghi, Massimiliano (2011). Tra panellenismo e tradizioni locali: nuovi contributi (in Italian). Claudio Meliadò. ISBN   978-88-8268-029-9.
  41. Antonio et al. 2019, Table 2 Sample Information, Rows 29-32, 36-37.
  42. Antonio et al. 2019, p. 2.
  43. Antonio et al. 2019, p. 3.

Bibliography