User:Dmpilla/sandbox

Samnite People -- Pentri Tribe

Pliny the Elder article: https://www.italyneverseen.com/themes/i-sanniti-pentri-la-sconosciuta-storia-ditalia/

More stuff (and city locations): http://www.sanniti.info/smpeople.html

Livy

Samnite Wars is more detail than Samnites Allifæ and Callifæ (modern day Alife and Calvisi ) were other Samnite settlements in Campania, located about 20 miles west of modern Mirabello.
 * https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19725/19725-h/19725-h.htm
 * https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10907/pg10907-images.html
 * http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Liv.+8+25&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0155

The Samnites Pentri
In the 4th century BC, the central Apennine mountain region was largely settled by the Samnite people. This area was more precisely referred to as Samnium (Italian: Sannio). An offshoot of the Sabines (Pliny the elder), the oldest written record of the Samnites comes from a treaty with the Romans in 354 BC. The territory was organized as a confederation of four major tribes: the Hirpini, Caudini, Caraceni, and Pentri. The Pentri tribe was located in the center of Samnium, with its capital city being Bovianum (modern day Bojano). Mirabello Sannitico today lies only 10 miles northeast of the site, suggesting that any early inhabitants belonged to the powerful tribe. The scattered populace of the Samnites are a product of ver sacrum, a Sabine tradition that forced tribal members into colonization of unsettled land.

De Sancits links Mirabello Sannitico to the Samnites in his book on the origins of the nearby town of Ferrazzano, citing scattered remains of Italic settlements and polygonal Samnite walls in the locale of La Rocca. This has led some to identify the site with conquest of the city of Allifæ, Callifæ, and Ruffrium, ancient Samnite settlements roughly 20 miles west of modern Mirabello Sannitico over the Matese mountains. Ruffrium was conquered multiple times by the Romans, initially in 326 BC during the Second Samnite Wars; Livy wrote :"'Three towns fell into their hands, Allifæ, Callifæ, and Ruffrium; and the adjoining country to a great extent was, on the first arrival of the consuls, laid entirely waste' (Livy, VIII. 25)."Allifæ and Callifæ (modern day Alife and Calvisi ) were other Samnite settlements in Campania, located about 20 miles west of modern Mirabello. Livy's recording here is the only known mention of Callifæ in historical documents. Allifæ has a special importance in this story, however, as only it is mentioned later on by Livy. Immediately after this conquest, the Romans were faced with a the Romans lost control soon after in 310 BC:"'During these transactions in Etruria the other Consul CM. Rutilus took Allife by storm from the Samnites, and many of their forts and smaller towns were either destroyed or surrendered uninjured' (Livy, IX. 38)."The battles culminated three years later in 307 BC:"'The proconsul Quintus Fabius fought near the city Allifae a pitched battle with the army of the Samnites. The victory was complete, the enemy were driven from the field and pursued to their camp; and they could not have held the camp had there not been very little daylight left... guards were posted in the night to prevent anyone's escaping. The next day, before it was well light, they began to surrender. The Samnites among them bargained to be dismissed in their tunics; all these were sent under the yoke.The allies of the Samnites... sold into slavery, to the number of seven thousand. Those who gave themselves out for Hernic citizens were detained apart in custody, and Fabius sent them all to the senate in Rome. There an enquiry was held as to whether they had been conscripted or had fought voluntarily for the Samnites against the Romans; after which they were parceled out amongst the Latins to be guarded.' (Livy, IX. 42)"While it is unknown when exactly the first inhabitants of Mirabello Sannitico came to be, it seems unlikely any settlement would have survived these battles. Any early occupants could have been those Livy mentioned in "the adjoining country" during the first raids that were "laid to waste", the "forts and smaller towns [that] were either destroyed or surrendered" in the Samnite counterattack, or the "enemy... driven from the fields" that were "sold into slavery" in Quintus Fabuis's final assault. Some claim that, after the Romans destroyed Ruffrium in the bloody battle, the population moved away and founded another village, called Mirum Bellum; meanwhile, the Romans built a tower used as a fortress for political prisoners on the ruins of the old town. DeSanctis writes that it was the Romans themselves who called the site "Mirum Bellum", combined with Sanniti (Italian for Samnites) from which the current toponym Mirabello Sannitico is derived.