Where Do Italians Come From?  The Ancient Tribes.

Where Do Italians Come From? The Ancient Tribes.

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The Ancient Tribes of Italy

We are all aware of the Romans, the Gauls,  the Greeks and their infulence in the Italian peninsula, but long before them there were countless other tribes and peoples that inhabited what is now Italy.  I had never thought too much about that until I took part in a fantastic seminar by Nicola Mastronardi on the history of the Samnites, who inhabited parts of what are now parts of Molise, Puglia and Calabria.  Nicola’s talk focuses mainly on the Samnites, but also touches on some of the other tribes outlined below.

Ancient Tribes of Italy
Click the map to watch the video

Besides the Samnites there were many other tribes:

The Estruscans lived in what is now Tuscany

The Greeks, as we know, were in the South

The Latini and the Sabines lived in the area around Rome

The Lucanians lived south of the Samnites in what is now Calabria

The Siculians ( Sikeloi, Sikenoi and Elymoi ) lived in Sicily

The Enotrians lived on the Ionian and  Tyrrhenian coasts

The Opicians lived in todays Campania

The Picenians Lived in what is now Le Marche

The Ligurians lived in, well Liguria

The Venti in Venitia

Several tribes, such as the Iapigi, lived in what is now Puglia

The Umbrians lived in Umbria of course

Finally the Nuragi lived on Sardinia

This probably explains a lot of the cultural and physical differences across one of the most diverse places in the world.  To read more about each tribe you can visit:

NaplesDM

LideaMagazine

Saylor.org

Stay tuned, and subscribe or join our Facebook  group as I plan to deep dive into each of these tribes in the coming weeks.

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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Marianne DiLecce Adams

    I would like to know what the meaning of DiLecce is.

  2. Peggy

    I’m guessing – “From Lecce or Of Lecce”?

Comments are closed.