NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Ancient Italic peoples

Ancient Italic peoples are all those peoples that lived in Italy before the Roman domination. These various people are not all linguistically or genetically closely related. Some of them spoke Italic languages, others were colonists who spoke Greek, while others appertained to another Indo-European branch or were non-Indo-European. The classification of a number of these ethnicons is unknown or disputed. Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ...

Categories: Italic peoples The Brutti were an ancient people of southern Italy, occupying the interior of Bruttium (modern Calabria). ... The Etruscan civilization existed in Etruria and the Po valley in the northern part of what is now Italy, prior to the formation of the Roman Republic. ... The Euganei (fr. ... Falisci, a tribe of Sabine origin or connections, but speaking an Italic language closely akin to Latin, who inhabited the town of Falerii, as well as a considerable tract of the surrounding country, probably reaching as far south as to include the small town of Capena. ... The Italiotes were the pre-Roman Greek speaking people living on the Italian peninsula, between Neapolis and Sicily. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times by an ancient people of north-western Italy known as Ligures. ... The Marrucini were an ancient tribe which occupied a small strip of territory round about Teate (mod. ... The Marsi were an ancient people of Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus. ... Messapii, an ancient tribe which inhabited, in historical times, the south-eastern peninsula or heel of Italy, known variously in ancient times as Calabria, Messapia and Iapygia. ... Sabine (in Latin and in Italian, Sabina) is a sub-region of Latium, Italy, on the North-East of Rome toward Rieti. ... Samnite warriors Samnium (Oscan Safinim) was a region of the southern Apennines in Italy that was home to the Samnites, a group of Sabellic tribes that controlled the area from about 600 BC to about 290 BC. Samnium was delimited by Latium in the north, by Lucania in the south... The Sicani (or Sikanoi) were an ancient people of Italy who dwelt along the Tiber river. ... According to Thucydides (vi:2), before the arrival of Greek colonists, the Sicels (or Siculi) were one of the three tribes who inhabited Sicily: the Sicels (Greek Sikeloi) in eastern Sicily (as well as southern Italy), who spoke an Indo-European language, and the Sicani (Greek Sikanoi) and Elymi (Greek... The Taurini were an ancient Celt-Ligurian people, who occupied the upper valley of the river Po, in the centre of the modern Piedmont. ... Umbrian, an Indo-European language of the Italic family, is a dead language formerly spoken in Umbria, Italy. ... The Veneti were an ancient people who inhabited todays northeastern Italy (near Venice). ...