Peucetians
ThePeucetianswere anIapygiantribe which inhabited western and centralApuliainclassical antiquity.[1]
Two other Iapygian tribes, theDauniansand theMessapians,inhabited northern and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke theMessapian language,but had developed separatearchaeological culturesby the seventh century BC; however, in Peucetian territoryancient GreekandOscan languagewere spoken as well, as the legends of the currencies fromRubiandAzetiumwere trilingual.[2]Peucetians lived in the eponymous regionPeucetia,which was bordered by theOfantoriver and theMurgein the north, theBradanoriver in the west and the territories of theGreekcolonyofTarasand the Messapians in the south.[3]This region is mostly coincident with theMetropolitan City of Bariand parts of the provinces ofTarantoandBarletta-Andria-Tranitoday.
Name
[edit]TheEncyclopédieunder "Peuceti", distinguishes them from another ancient people, thePeucetioewho were living inLiburniaat the head of theAdriatic,with a reference toCallimachus,as quoted inPliny(H.N.III.21) placing their country in Pliny's day as part ofIllyria.[4]
Modern ethnography regard the term 'Poedicli' as a synonym of 'Peucetii'.[5]InAncient Greekthey were known asΠευκέτιοι.[6]
History
[edit]They had three important towns:Canosa,SilviumandBitonto;the present capital ofApulia,Bari,had not much importance.
With increasingHellenizationtheireponymousancestor, given the namePeucetis,was said byDionysius of Halicarnassus[7]to have been the son of theArcadianLycaonand brother ofOenotrus.Lycaon having divided Arcadia among his twenty-two sons, Peucetios was inspired to seek better fortune abroad. Thisetiologicalmyth is considered by modern writers to suggest strongly that, as far as the Greeks were concerned, the Peucetii were culturally part, though an unimportant part, ofMagna Graecia.
Straboplaces them to the north of theCalabri.[8]Strabo adds (VI.8) "...the terms Peucetii and Daunii are not at all used by the native inhabitants except in the early times. "In the time of Strabo the territory occupied by the former Peuceti lay on the mule-track that was the only connection betweenBrindisiandBenevento.[9]Pre-Roman ceramic evidence justifies Strabo's classification of Daunii, Peucetii and Messapii, who were all speakers of theMessapian language.There were twelve tribal proto-statelets among the Peucetii, one of which is represented by modernAltamura.
Genetics
[edit]A genetic analysis of maternal haplogroups published in 2018 examined DNA extracted from 15 Iron Age (7th – 4th c. BCE) and 30 Roman period (1st – 4th c. CE) individuals buried at Iron Age Botromagno and Roman period Vagnari, now part ofGravina in Puglia.The study supports previous hypotheses that the ancestors of the Iron Age Iapygians may have originated in the eastern Balkan region, or derive shared ancestry with a common source population from eastern Europe, and suggests that as the Romans occupied the region, they populated their Imperial properties with people from central Italy (possibly from the region ofLatium,and the surrounding environs of Rome).[10]
See also
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]- ^"Peucezi nell'Enciclopedia Treccani".www.treccani.it(in Italian).Retrieved2023-10-20.
- ^Salvemini Biagio, Massafra Angelo (May 2014).Storia della Puglia. Dalle origini al Seicento(in Italian). Laterza.ISBN9788858113882.
- ^Carpenter, Lynch & Robinson 2014,p.2,18,34and38–39.
- ^on-line textArchived2007-09-30 at theWayback Machine
- ^i.e.,Ray Laurence,inCultural Identity in the Roman Empire,1998, ch. 7 "Territory, ethnonyms and geography: The construction of identity in Roman Italy" "...in Apulia, where the Peucetii were also known as Poedicli... "
- ^Marchesini 2020,p. 496.
- ^Dionysius,Roman Antiquites,I.xi.3.
- ^"...on the north [of the land of theCalabri], are the Peucetii and also those people who in the Greek language are calledDauni,but the natives give the name Apulia to the whole country that comes after that of the Calabri, though some of them, particularly the Peucetii, are called Poedicli also. "(GeographyVI.3).
- ^"There are two roads fromhere:one, a mule-road through the countries of the Peucetii (who are called Poedicli) theDauni,and theSamnitaeas far asBeneventum... "(GeographyVI.7.
- ^Emery, Matthew (June 2018).Assessing Migration and Demographic Change in pre-Roman and Roman Period Southern Italy Using Whole-Mitochondrial DNA and Stable Isotope Analysis(Thesis thesis).
References
[edit]- Carpenter, T. H.; Lynch, K. M.; Robinson, E. G. D., eds. (2014).The Italic People of Ancient Apulia: New Evidence from Pottery for Workshops, Markets, and Customs.New York City, New York: Cambridge University Press.ISBN9781139992701.
- Marchesini, Simona (2020)."Messapico".Palaeohispanica(in Italian) (20): 495–530.doi:10.36707/palaeohispanica.v0i20.378.ISSN1578-5386.
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