Historical background

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Etruscan Religion
by Mario Torelli

From The Etruscans, edited by Mario Torelli

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The earliest secure evidence documenting prehistorical Etruscan religious ritual comes from an excavation made during the past few years, when there was the discovery of a place of worship with undoubted "political" connotations, dating to between the Later Bronze Age (tenth century BC) and the Hellenistic Age (third century BC) in the heart of ancient Tarquinia. [...] The original locus of this cult is a deep cavity in the ground where various kinds of sacrifices were made; the pit ha yielded unprecedented evidence suggesting sacrifical rites involving infants, a practice to which our sources attribute the origin of the Roman vestival of Compitalia performed for the cult of the domestic goods known as Lares (Macrobius, Saturnalia, I, 7, 35). Subsequently, in the seventh century BC a cult building was erected, complete with altars linked to the mouth of the shaft, and a large trapezoidal precinct, probably the site of collective rituals and gatherings: the deposits of bronze parade weaponry, ceremonially rendered unserviceable, suggest observances similar to those of the Roman rites of Iuppiter Feretrius.

Providing clues as to the Etruscans' conception of relgion during the protohistoric period are tettramorphic or nonetheless non-antropomorphic representations of deities found on cineary urn lids, such as the famous lid from Pontecagnano (ninth century BC), on which appears a couple from the underworld with elongated extremities and faces, caught in a sacred conjugal embrace; or the one from Bisenzio (eigth century BC), depicting a pyrric around a gigantic figure with monstrous features (or a deity than a bear-figure as suggested). Before the beginning of the Hellenization process it seems that deities were believed to be horrendous, animalesque figures (at least those concerned with death). This tradition arose in historical times in the guise of the monster Olta, who emerged from the land of Volsinii and was struck down by a thunderbolt summoned by Porsenna (Pliny, Naturalis qhistoria, XI, 140), a feature that survived in the underworld larvae and the subterranean dei indigetes-pisciculi (gods in form of fishes) of Roman tradition. There can be little doubt that in this early phase of Etruscan religion a fundamental role was entrusted to the elements of nature, housed in the sky, earth, and the underworld; not endowed with antropomorphic features they were of terrifying appearance, and often of ambiguous sexual connotation: ever since the remote past, this ambiguity attitrubed to the gods applied not only to the retinue of "demons" of historical Etruscan deities, but even to Velthumna-Vertumnus himself, deus Etruriae princeps and lord of the federal sanctuary of Volsinii (Varro, De lingua latina, V, 46),whose features are described in Propertius (IV, 2) as protean and sexually ambigous, despite the inevitable Hellenistic euhemerisms.

From the beginnings of class stratification in the eighth century BC, and the consequent cohesion into increasingly evolved complex settlements (eighth-sixth century), Etruscan society found its ideal counterpart in Greek civilization, which was soon adopted as a model for an emerging aristocratic social setup styled on the Greek poleis. This process of cultural induction, whose byproduct was the Hellenization of the Etruscan pantheon and religious ritual, generated a combination of Greek models forged with characteristics of traditional pre-orotohistorical cult practices, with a sprinkling of eastern elements introduced into Etruria by Phoenician trade dating to before the first significant impact of contact with the Greeks, at the start of the eighth century BC. This interchange was responsible for the Orientalizing features of Etruscan religion, epitomized by the Etrusco-Punic goddess Uni-Astarte in the sanctuary at Pyrgi; other manifeastations are the emergence of the haruspex, which thenceforth rapidly became a standard Etruscan means of divination in historical times, having indoubted roots in the Mesopotamian science of hepatoscopy. All these influences reached the Etruscans by means of the peninsula's varied contacts with the East in the earlry stages of the first millenium BC. This notwithstanding, it was primarily the Greek civilization in all its cultural complexity -- literature, visual arts, lifestyle, production techniques, military science, and hence the very material and cultural identity of both the individual and society -- that offered the pivotal reference point for the emerging Etruscan cities, which as early as the eighth century BC sifted through the vast legacy of Hellenic culture for aspects that were compatible with the existing society and culture.

One of the most crucial aspects of this assimilation process -- and one that guaranteed the Etruscan political future -- was the Greek religious legacy, whose absorption wrought a sweeping revolution of beliefs followed by the Hellenization of a large quota of the Etruscan pantheon and the assumption of a great many Greek myths; this fostered a manifest alignment of religious practices with the Greek system, and brought with it the Hellenization of the rituals and conceptions involved in indigenous worship, such that on the surface the Etruscan religion began to look like a provincial variant of its Greek counterpart. Roman culture was likewise being affected, with the piecemeal Hellenization of its gods and forms of worship in a manner similar to the process then under way in Etruria.

Thus we have Culsans, which appears to stem from the word *culs ("gate" or "doorway") representing a two-headed deity comparable to Janus, it too linked to the Latin word for gate, ianua. Meanwhile Laran is a war-like figure who features in many local myths and perhaps corresponds with Quirinus; Calu inhabits the underworld, and Pethan might be his paredra; Catha (or Cautha) is a sun-god with underworld connotations similar to the Latin (Sol) Indiges. Mlacuch is almost certainly equivalent to the Latin Bona Dea and to the Sabine Cupra; Rath appears to be a young god linked to the art of divination; Alpan belongs to the circle of Aphrodite, but inscriptional dedications assign her a cult of her own; Cilen may be linked to the god of Fate; in its Latinized form Velchumna becomes Vortumnus (perhaps linked to the Etruscan god Tevere-Volturnus?) and rather than represent an independent deity could be one of the (Tinia)Velchumna, i.e., a kind of youthful Zeus, protector of vegetation. Despite some reservations regarding the attributes of each deity, many of the non-Hellenized gods are indubitably allocated to the underworld, a relevant sphere in the Etruscan worldview, and one that found scant material for assimilation in the Greek pantheon.

By the end of this fervid phase of interpretatio Graeca of a number of the local deities -- a process that ended in the seventh century BC -- the Etruscan pantheon had established its definiteve state. From the seventh to the end of the fourth century BC the repertoire for decoration of whatever articles with intrinsic ideological significance -- from the parade items and luxury goods to the sculpted ornament of the large sanctuaries -- is dominated without exception by Greek mythology. The mythical themes of Hellenic stamp adorning the monuments in the early Antique period (seventh century BC) are unequivocally of a political nature, celebrating the sovereigny and aristeia of the noble families, declaring the mythical origins of their ghenos and the conquest of power. As a result, considerable space was given over to the myths of Theseus and Heracles, to the THeban and Trojan cycles, in which the thematic material mentioned above found easy correspondence; whereas representations of such myths as battles against giants, titans and amazons -- at the time very popuar in contemporary Greece to portray the triumph of cosmic order over the chaos and barbarity of mankind -- are surprisingly few and far between. From this distinguishing fact one can reasonably surmise inherent differences in the Etruscan view of celestial and cosmic order from that of the Greeks.

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While the interpretatio Graeca that took place in the Archaic period -- favored by successive outside philosophical and religious influences upon Etruscan religion (particularly Orphism and Pythagoreanism spreading from Magna Graecia) -- helped establish a theological framework explaining the balance of powers, spheres of influence, and divinities, it never entirely obscured the original and often ambiguous nature intrinsic to the Etruscan gods, whose distinguishing feature was their uncanny ability to shift freom heaven to earth, to switch from one type of power to another, to trespass between domains and, not least, their sexual ambivalence.

Thanks to this pecularity of the Etruscan religious mentality, the ambiguity of the indigenous gods allowed them to transit from one sphere to another and therefore assimilate the corresponding powers of wherever they went. The result was the development of a concept essential to Etruscan and Italic culture, known to us through the art of divining: the mysical correspondence between templa, in caelo, in terris, and sub terra, that is, the coexistence of supernal forces in the celestial spheres, on the earth, and in the underworld. This analogy was transferred to the haruspicy, by which the subdivisions of heven and earth were identified on the surface of the liver of the victim. Arising at source from the pan-Italic branch of the practice of interpreting omens and portents -- probably influenced by Mesapotamian concepts during the Orientalizing period of the eighth and seventh centuries BC -- haruspicy was a political and religious pecularity refined by the Etruscan priesthood, which systematically developed three distinct kinds of divining in parallel: the scrutiny of entrails or livers (hepatoscopy), of lightning (fulguratoria), and thunder (brontoscopy). The class of priests developed within the larger clans and soon saw the emergence of an oligarchy, a characteristic of Etruscan society from the fifth century BC onward, which developed the esteric science of reading omens reputed unintelligible to the common man, and whose interpretation was reseverd to the priestly members of the ruling class. In the Hellenistic period this elite of expert consultants, composed of heirs of the aristcracy of the Etruscan dodecapolis, established a collegium lx harusicum based in Tarquinii, the sacred town where Tages was born.


At any event, the progressive "normalization" of Etruscan religious culture as it succumbed to the influence of the Hellenic world resulted in a more clearly defined, less protean and ambiguous pantheon. Thus prompted to conform with their Greek counterparts, the Etruscan gods gradually acquired more stable theological attributes, compatible with the prevailing characteristics of the original deities -- whether hostile or benign, chthonic or celestial -- according to their appointed sedes and to the ability of the haruspices to deliver interpretations of prodigious natural events requested of them. Thanks again to Greek influence during the late Classical and above all Hellenstic periods, these doctrines steadily absorbed input from the Orphic-Pythagorean tradition and from astrological practices of varying nature and significance, a process that gradually saw the Etrusca disciplina evolve into a complex corpus of religious knowledge. That science was managed by professoinal haruspices based in each town of the Dodecapolis, gathered into a corporation of sixty priests, the collegium lx haruspicum, with its headquarters in Tarquinii, the birthplace of the fabled child-like seer Tages. The resulting corpus of doctrines was systematically enhanced with the colege's collective responsa together with the specific prognostications made each time by individual diviners (generally a member of the collegium) and complied in volumes.

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Though scarce, what fragments survive of the written sources provide vital insights into the fundamental features of the Etruscan spiritual ethos. The gods themselves are distant, their sedes remote, whence, either alone or concomitant with others in a groupor divine compound, they make their will manifest to mankind. However, whereas the Greek and Roman religions of this same period theorized on the pax deorum, the peaceful balance between the divine and human spheres and the need to reestablish harmony whenever man's actions upset the balance, the Etruscans' idea of order -- attested by their disregard for such cosmogonic myths as Gians and Titans -- answers to criteria whose theoretical basis is still largely obscure, but at all events obeys a different logic to Greek thought in the Classical and Hellenistic ages. Etruscan mentality has been effectively described by Seneca in a famous passage from the Naturales quaestiones (II, 32, 2): "We believe that thunderbolts are the outcome of a collision of clouds; instead, [the Etruscans] believe that the clouds collide in order to produce thunderbolts: since they attribute all phenomena to the will of the gods, they are convinced that things have meaning not because they happen, but because they are bearers of portents."

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Samnium and the Samnites (excerpts -- Samnite government)
by Steven Salmon

Provides lots of ideas about implementing the political aspect of Samnites within the constraints of RTW's engine. It's a fascinating read, I highly recommend it.

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The Samnite tribal states developed out of peasant societies. Fera quaedam sodalitas et plane pastoricia atque agrestis...quorum coitio illa silvestris ante est instituta quam humanitas atque leges. (Cic. pro Caelio, 26: Cicero is talking about the germani Luperci, whose name however is identical with Hirpini.) The transition from barbarism to civilization could have occurred in the manner envisaged by Plato for primitive mountaneer societies (Laws, 3.679-81). But all we know concerning the way the Samnites organized themselves derives from casual allusions in the literary sources and Oscan documents. The literary sources, however, are Roman or Roman-inspired, while the Oscan documents with one or two exceptions date from the period when the Sabellians were already under Roman domination; and as we have been recently reminded, 'Rome was the great centre of political innovation in Italy' (A.D.Momigliano in J.R.S. LIII, 1963, 114). Consequently it is by no means easy to decide what institutuion is genuinely Samnite and what is merely imitation of something Roman.

The city-state as a unit of government did not exist among the Samnites. The political and administrative unit of the Sabellians generally and of the Samnites especially was not the municipium, but the touto. This word is said to have the same meaning as Latin populus, but probably has no exact equivalent. The touto was the unit that possessed corporate existence and was evidently larger than the average civitas. Of the civitas itself, with its distinctive individuality and civil constitution, there is no sign amongst the Samnites (Livy 8.23.6 uses the expression civitas Samnitium; but by this he clearly means the nomen Sabelicum.) The Samnites did not think in terms of a city-state with its territorium included, so to speak, within the urban centre. Their conception was of a territorial area in which urban agglomerations were more or less incidental, although they might be used as centres from which to conduct the business of the tribe. The Samnites had certainly passed beyond the stage of mere rudimentary village organization; but there is no trace of any true municipal oranization of an elaborate communal kind amongst them. The Samnites were in that pre-urban stage in which the tribal community formed the basis of political organization. Right down to the days of the Social War they do not appear to ahve had any genuine boroughs at all.

Their sub-tribal entity was the immemorial Italic institution, the pagus. [...] Each touto contained a number of pagi. The pagus was an administrative sub-unit, the smallest such amongst the italic peoples, but it was not a town: it was a district of variable size usually larger than a fundus, but smaller than a territorium, and might itself contain one or more settlements, either unwalled but stockaded villages (vici) where the country was flat (Livy 9.13.6; 10.17.2; cf. App. B.C. 1.51.222; Samn .4), or walled citadels of refuge (oppida, castella) where the country was mountainous (Livy 10.18.8). Neither vici nor oppida seem to have had any political life of their own: they were not the administrative sub-units. The pagi were.

The pagus was a semi-independent country district, concerned with social, agricultural and especially religious matters, and it may also have been through it that military levies were raised. When a number of pagi aagreed to cooperate closely a touto was born. And once it came into being it could evidently command the fierce loyalty of those who professed allegiance to it. In their native mountain habitats the Samnites had a strong sense of tribal solidarity (in other words, loyalty to their touto), and they gave expression to this in resounding feats of arms.

Livy refers to the populi Samnitium (9.22.2). Presumably each of these populi was a touto. Their number probably varied at different times. During the recorded history of the Samnites we hear of the four to which allusion has already been made: the Caraceni, Caudini, Hirpini and Pentri. It seems safe to infer that each of these four tribes made up a touto. Strabo implies that each of these tribes was a political entity in itself (6.1.2) and Livty confirms this for the last three (he never mentions the Caraceni separately). Note: Generally speaking it is only after the Pyrrhic War and the dissolution of the Samnite League that the tribes are separately named.

Presumably each had a locality which, while itself a submunicipal unit, served as a 'capital' (the caput gentis, so to speak), the centre of administration for the whole touto. Oscan inscriptions mentioning a meddix titius, the highest official in a Samnite state, indicate that Bovianum was the capital for the Pentri, and Livy confirms this (Vetter, numbers 159 and 160, Livy 9.31.4).

The capitals of the other three Samnite tribes are largely a matter of guesswork. Its name suggests that at one time Aequum Tuticum of the Hirpini served as some sort of political meeting-place, but it never seems to have been a place of much consequence. Malventum, on the other hand, must always have been important and it is oncnceivable that it was not the Hirpinian capital in its pre-Roman days. [...]

For the Caudini it is surely as certain as anything can be that eponymous Caudium must have served as capital in the pre-Roman days.

The Caraceni presumably used Aufidena as their chief centre. The smallness of the tribe makes it probable that this was the only settlement they had bigger than a village, and it is significant that once it was annexed by Rome c.260 the Caraceni seem to have disappeared as a separate tribe. An inscription from Aufidena, Vetter number 141, has been emended to read m.t., i.e. meddiss toutiks. If the emendation is right, it presumably means that the office of meddix tuticus was allowed to continue even after Rome annexed Aufidena c. 268.

The word meddix occurs in Oscan inscriptions in the form meddiss. It does not occur in Latin inscriptions, where the Latin title praetor is regularly substituted for it. Ancient authors also usually refer to a meddix as praetor or strategos; but they do sometimes use the word meddix itself.

Meddix was an old Italic title used by all the other Sabellian and Sabellic peoples and by the related Volsci as well. It is generally agreed that it is cognate with Latin iudex. According to Festus, meddix was a generic term equivalent in meaning to Latin magistratus. It could, however, be made specific by the addition of a qualifying adjective. The chief meddix, the head of the state, was called meddix tuticus (meddiss toutiks), the adjective clearly being formed from touto.

Ennius' and Livy's definition of the title as summus is confirmed by the Oscan inscriptions. Ennius' evidence is particularly valuable since he himself spoke Oscan. His words are: summus ibi capitur meddix, occiditur alter. The meddix tuticus had full unfettered authority in his touto. Unlike other officials he is not described as aacting only on the authority of a council, although he was expected consult one; and it was made clear that the other officials were subordinate to him. In addition to supervising the workings of the law he was the military leader of the state (Livy 8.39.13; 23.7.8; 24.47.7; Diod. 22.13.2, 5), and had a role, originally no doubt the chief role, in its official religion (Livy 23.35.13). He summoned and presided over meetings of council and assembly and supervised state finances. As an eponymous magistrate his office was an annual one (Vetter, numbers 14, 71, 149). He seemed, however, to have been eligible for immediate re-election: this was certainly the case af Capua and amongst the Sabellian insurgents in the Social War (Livy 23.2.3; 24.19.2; 26.6.13).

In wielding supreme authority the meddix tuticus obviously resembled the Roman consul (See Festus, p. 404 L., who also likens the meddix to the Carthaginian sufes). Unlike the latter, however, he does not appear to have had a colleague on equal terms with himself. It has been convincingly argued that the native meddix tuticus was originally a single official. In Samnium, so far as we know, this was the case at all times. The earliest occurrence of the word meddix, on a helmet from Lucania, refers to a single official. At Capua, before Rome suppressed its local government in 211, there was one meddix tuticus Campanus (meddis toutiks Kapuans, Vetter number 88, cf number 86. Comparable are meddix Pompeianus, meddix Nolanus.).

Unquestionably pairs of meddices existed. The typically Oscan adjective tuticus, however, is not used with any of these pairs, and the influence of the Roman collegial system could explain them all. The pair at Messana are the result of close Mamertine relations with Rome after 265. The proximity of Velitrae to Rome made Roman influence there inescapable: indeed by the third century, the date of the inscription concerned, it was quite marked (by then it was part of the Roman state). An inscription that alludes to one of the pair at Nola contains the Latin neologsms senatus and quaestor (Vetter, number 1). The two at Corfinium are named in a document which uses the Latin script and includes a Latin verb superficially oscanized.

Besides its chief magistrate a Sabellian state also had lower officials. At Iovila inscription from the pre-211 self-governing Capua seems to mention a meddix minor and another may contain the Oscan equivlanet of cum meddix quisquis minor est aderit. Ennius and Livy also reveal the existence of magistrates below the meddix tuticus (Ennius has summus meddix, alter meddix, which implies that there were at least three.)

Every pagus in a touto may well have had its own meddix: he would be subordinate to the meddix tuticus. Meddices who are not tutici are also securely documented: there were meddices decentarii (mediss degetasios) at Campanian Nola and meddices atici (medix aticus [sic]) at Paelignian Corfinium. The Nolan meddix decentarius was the exact equivalent of the quaestor at Abella, who in his turn strikingly resembles the quaestor at Pompeii and at Bantia: in neither of these two places was he the chief official. The quaestor apparently could act only on the authority fo the council; unlike meddix tuticus, he could not use his own discretion. Moreover the quaestor -- and the same is true of the meddix decentarius -- was not a single official; contrary to a common belief, he and his fellows persumably formed a college. The meddices decentarii at Nola were evidently financial officers. The functions of the meddix aticus at Corfinium strongly resemble those of the meddix decentarius at Nola, so that he too perhaps is to be equated with the questor. The title at Nola may mean that the official there was chiefly concerned with funds derived from tithing: he certainly controlled what appears to be equivalent of the Roman pecunia multaticia which was managed at Rome by the quaestor. The title of the meddix aticus seems vaguer: perhaps he supervised all types of public revenue.

The neames of all other lesser Sabellian officials, where known, seem to be with one possible exception clearly Roman (the one possible exception is the kenzstur, and he too might well be of Roman origin). This however is no proof of Rudolph's theory that Rome was responsible for practically all the magistracies in Italy. A Roman title does not prove Roman origin. The Tsars of the Slavs hardly descended from the Caesars of the Romans [N.B. no?] The Sabellians adopted Roman names for some of their native institutions simply because Roman nomenclature was better adapted to spcialization of function than Oscan (A legal document such as the Cippus Abellanus, Vetter number 1, shows that the Sabellians found it convenient to use Latin technical expressions). In some instances the institution as well as the name was derived from Rome: the aidil, for instance, does not look like the native officer of tha touto. But this is not inevitably or invariably true for all the other minor official.

All Sabellian titles are listed (with the Oscan inscriptions in parentheses):

aidilis (Oscan aidil)
censor (Oscan kenzstur)
legatus (Oscan ligat)
praefectus (Oscan praefucus)
praetor (Oscan praetur)
promagistratus (Oscan prumeddix)
quaestor (Oscan kvaisstur)
tribunus plebis (Oscan tr. pl.)
triumvir (Oscan trium nerum)

These obviously Roman titles, in some instances at least, may have been applied to genuinely native offices: the kvaisstur and the ligat, for instance, seem to have functions for which Roman influence is not responsible. On the other hand some of the offices, as well as the titles, seem to be direct imitation of Rome: the Oscan tr. pl., for instance, does not look very Sabellian. More controversial is the kenzstur. [...] It seems more likely that the Sabellians got the name from the Romans, and perhaps the office as well, since all ancient sources regard the censorship as a distinctively Roman magistracy).

Presumably the Samnites elected their officials: their close kinsmen, the Lucani, certainly elected their praetor (Livy, 25.16.6) and Sabellian communities which were municipally organized, for example the Campanian towns, or Bantia, had both a council and an assembly which exercised elective functions. The unurbanized, tribally organized touto of the Sabellic Marrucini also had an assembly. In Samnium there exists at Trebula Balliensis an area that probably served as a meeting-place for the assembly of the Caudini; and amongst the Hirpini the name of the town Aequum Tuticum obviously means Forum Publicum. That the topography of Samnium was no obstacle to gatherings is seen during the Social War when the Italici held meetings of a council and also apparently of an assembly, at Corfinium and elsewhere. It can then be surmised that each Samnite tribe had both a council and an assembly, which met periodically at some centre, presumably at the summons and under the presidency of the meddix tuticus. Livy took it for granted that there were such gatherings (Livy 8.39.10; 10.12.2; 23.2, 14, 15, 16, 39, 43; 24.13.8; cf. Dio 15, fr. 57, 30 and 34; Zon. 9.2.11). It is not easy, however, to discover the Oscan names for the two bodies, such words as senatus and comono being Latin neologisms.

At Rome it was the various ways of organizing the people in groups for voting purposes that was responsible for a plurality of assemblies, whereas Sabellian communities do not seem to have been organized in this way. There is no trace of voting by groups at Bantia, and if that heavily romanized community did not have the practice, it is unlikely that other Sabellian states had it either. Assuming that a Sabellian state had only one assembly and that it was to it that the word komparakio- as well as the word kombennio- referred, we must conclude that the Oscan word for 'council' has not survived. (One would have expected a word derived from casnar (= 'old' in Oscan; perhaps it was something resembling Marsic casontonia). We can either imitate Livy and the Sabellians themselves and call it by the latin name senatus, or we can use whatever the name is for the institution in our native tongue.

The functions of the council must have been advisory and probouletic; but, in addtiion, it may have wielded very considerable powers, like the Roman senate, greater powers perhaps than in theory it was supposed to possess (Livy 8.39.10-14 obviously thought that it could sit in a judicial capacity, exercise complete control over a Samnite's person and property and subordinate the meddix to itself). A Sabellian senate undoubtedly had the right to appoint legati (Livy 41.8.6 describes a legatio which had probably been sent out by a Samnite senate): it did so at Nola and at Abella after deciding where a temple should be built; and presumably it did so in Samnium after deciding to protest to Rome about the way Samnites were being permitted and perhaps even encouraged to leave Samnium.

Something is also known about the function of a Sabellian assembly. Besides the right to eelect officials and possibly council members, it must also have had legislative powers, like those of the touto of the Marrucini in the third century, and judicial powers, like those of the assembly at Bantia in the second and first.

The Sabellians also had a political and/or military organization called the vere(h)ia. It existed amongst the Sabellians of Campania and the Frentani, and so probably amongst the Samnites as well. It may have been a youth organization, the youths being the 'gate-wardens' (Oscan vero = Latin porta). This organization played an important part in the military life of the state and, like the iuventus at Rome, was almost certainly an aristocratic institution (for the youth organization amongst the Aurunci, see Livy 9.25). At Sabellian Pompeii the so-called Small Palaestra, an elegant gymnasium in which ephebi could train and take exercise, was clearly intended for the jeunesse doree; and amongst the probably related Aurunci there was a youth organization drawn from the classes and not from the masses.

The constitution of a Sabellian state could be described as 'mixed', the meddix tuticus supplying the monarchical element, the council the aristocratic, and the kombennio- (or komparakio-) the democratic. It is perhaps not being unduly fanciful to suggest that their constitutional arrangements may have helped foster the tale that the Sabellians were of Lacedaemonian descent, since the Spartans were the people with a mixed constitution par excellence.

Down to the third century, the four tribes of Samnium were joined together in an association called civitas Samnium by Livy (8.23.6). The term Samnite League seems justified, on the analogy of the Latin League about whose organization in the fourth century Cincius, an antiquarian of Augustus' day, supplies a little information.

It is usually assumed that the ties binding the Samnite League were quite loose, the chief basis for this opinion being the Sabellian lack of cohesiveness in general (note how in 180 Cumae dissociated itself from the Oscan-speaking districts of Campania by requesting permission to make Latin its official language, Livy 40.42.13.). The Frentani, for instance, more usually threw in their lot with the Sabellic than with their Sabellian neighbours, the Samnites. The Lucani only made common cause with the Samnites occasionally and were often at daggers drawn with them. The Bruttii broke away from the Lucani and the Larinates away from the Frentani. And there was fierce hostility between the Sabellians of Samnium and those of Campania. Moreover what we know of other leagues in early Italy, such as the Etruscan and the Latin, suggests that individual league-members could go to war with one another. The Samnite tribes may often have quarrelled among themselves, and it would be strange indeed if agrucultural communities did not come to blows with pastoral. Such internal disagreements between the Samnite confederates encouraged the Romans to attempt to split the Hirpini from the Pentri and the Caudini from both and even from one another.


If Samnites, Lucani and Bruttii failed to form a political union, it may have been due in large part to differing racial strains. The non-Sabellian element in the ethnic make-up of Lucani and Bruttii was larger than in that of any tribe in Samnium. This disunifying factor would reinforce the instinct for particularism that prevailed in early Italy, and that is exemplified by the Frentani and Campanians, who are not markedly different from the inhabitants of Samnium in their racial stock, yet rarely act in unison with them. The lowland Campanians, if not the Frentani, had diverged from their backward highland origin to a more advanced form of culture and this made them reject their rustic kinsmen.

Nevertheless the Samnites were imbued with national consciousness, and Roman attempts to balkanize them were never fully successful. When convinced that they were threatened from without or that some enterprise undertaken in common would benefit them all, the Samnites sank their internal differences and presented a united front to the outside world. It is significant that, as late as the first century when the Social War broke out to test the sentiments of the peoples in Italy, the Hirpini range themselves unhesitatingly by the side of the Pentri against Rome, despite the very intensive romanization to which they had been exposed during the preceding century and a half.

In the fourth and early third centuries, when the Samnites were truly independent, the Samnite League did have unmistakably a strong sense of union. It was not held together merely by one tribe dominating all the others. The tribes are represented as united in their determination to oppose Rome to the desperate end, one indication of this being the almost total failure of the ancient athors to distinguish one tribe from another, or even to name them individually, in the accounts of the Samnite Wars. Furthermore there is no record of Rome being able to play off one tribe against another. She was able to win (Sabellian) Campani, Frentani, Apuli and even Lucani to her side; but there is no known instance of a member of the Samnite League making common cause with her against the other Samnites.

The association of Samnite tribes at the very least took the form of a permanent military alliance, what the Greeks called a symmachy, although unlike some Greek symmachies it does not seem to have had a hegemon to dragoon the other members. Essentially it was an everlasting league for the purpose of making war on outsiders and promoting other common objects, the first of which was the winning of divine favor: Livy is obviously right in suggesting that sacral as well as military ties kept the Samnites together (10. 38; Dion. Hal. 17/18.2.3).

The Samnite League was no full-fledged Bundestaat, or federal union: it was a Staatenbund, or confederation. Its four constituent members were virtually independent states, whose range of agreed common activities was probably narrow. Perhaps there was some kind of sympolity, and, although we do not hear of a popular assembly for the whole League, it is significant that the federal-type alliance of Italic states in the Social War does not seem to have had an assembly. The Samnite League undoubtedly had a council or Diet, to which ancient authors often allude and the purpose of whcih was to direct common policy. Livy suggests that the meddices were expected to consult it (7.13.11; 8.39.10f; 10.12.2. In 9.3.9 he very similarly represents Gavius Pontius in 321 as havinga council to consult), and both he and Dionysius of Halicarnassus mention the representatives (magistratus, probouloi) sent to it by the Samnite communities (Livy 7.13.11; 8.23.2; Dion. Hal. 15.7.4; 15.8.1; 17.1.4). But the number from each tribe, the method of their selection, and the tenure of the office are alike unknown. It would be indeed surprising if they were not the principes Samnitium. Presumably the Diet of the Samnite League, as of the Latin, met once a year, and more often if need be, possibly in a circus, to use Livy's word (The council of the Hernici met in the Circus Maritimus, Livy 9.42.12, a large, elliptical, man-made hollow some 2.5 miles south of Anagnia. The meeting of the Latini was an agora according to Dion. Hal. 5.61.1.). It may, however, have met in various places, coming together wherever it was most convenient for the immediate purpose.

The exact functions of the Diet are a matter of specuation. As a diplomatic body with real powers in time of war, it must have helped to frame the foreign policy of the League as a whole and decided strategy. Certainly in view of what Livy tells us and of what took place later at Corfinium in the Social War, it seems likely that, once hostilities broke out, the Diet directed the war effort. [...] It is more than likely that the League really came to life only at times of immediate common danger. But in the Italy of the fourth and early third centuries such occasions were very frequent, and when they occurred the Samnite tribes were prepared mutually to make concessions for their common good.

When war threatened, the League appointed a commander-in-chief (Livy 9.1.2). In this it was behaving like other Sabellian leagues. The Lucani, for instance, adopted unity of military command whenever it was urgently needed and appointed a former meddix as commander-in-chief: they had been doing this, says Strabo, from very early times (6.1.3; cf Livy 25.16.6). The title borne by this commander is uncertain. Beloch argued that it was meddix tuticus, but this view seems to run counter to the documentary, literary, and etymological evidence. The literary authors may not have known what the generalissimo's title was, but they evidently knew what it was not. It was not meddix or meddix tuticus. If it had been, they would have said so. Livy sometimes calls him dux, sometimes imperator; Strabo calls him basileus; Festus uses the word princeps.

It emerges from Strabo that the commander-in-chief was appointed for one campaign. Livy's language is more ambiguous and could mean that he was appointed for one year. He did not share the office with a colleague but was in sole command, and for this reason he seems to some scholars to resemble the dictator of the Latins. Also he was eligible for reappointment: at any rate, Papius Mutilus was appointed more than once in the Social War.

Although the Samnite League lacked well-organized centralization, the importance it assumed in time of war proves that it was not simply a lifeless aggregate of parts. Within it it contained the seeds of federalism. Greek example suggests that federal unions were more likely to emerge among peoples who were politically backward and who had no established flourishing, self-governing, municipal commonwealths. The Sabellians in general, and particularly the Samnites, were not living in a state of advanced political development: their political organisms were seldom urban. But even amongst the most advanced of the Sabellians there is an example of what appears to be a full-fledged federal union. Capua, Atella, Calatia, and 'Velecha' are shown by the identity of their coins to have enjoyed full 'sympolity' during a few years of the Second Punic War when they were in revolt from Rome. Mention should also be made of the insurgents in the Social War, all of whom were either Sabellian or Sabellic (i.e. near-Sabellian).

Evidently the political outlook of the speakers of Oscan differed from that of the speakers of Latin (this has recently been splendidly emphasized by A.J. Toynbee, Hannibal's Legacy, I, 84-280, who sees the Samnite Wars largely in terms of a struggle between the municipal idea represented by Rome and the tribal concept represented by Samnium). It is worth emphasizing that when the Romans organized Italy it was not on a federal pattern: the Roman practice was to make a separate, bilateral alliance with each state individually. The political instincts of the speakers of Oscan, on the other hand, were federative: Sabellians, Samnites, Sabellic tribes were all prone to form leagues.

Thus, there seems to have been a fundamental difference of viewpoint between Romans and Samnites. Possibly Sabellian statecraft would never have been capable of devising a system for linking a number of separate communities into a union that was cohesive, tightly close and truly indivisible. Or possibly the Sabellian temperament would never have been able to submit to the discipline required of political innovators. In the event the Sabellians did not get the chance to impose their ideas. It was the people with strong central organization, not the people with a federal outlook, that won the great struggle for the hegemony of Italy.