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Hirpini (Hirpinoi, Pol.; Hirpinoi, Strab. App.), a people of Central
Italy, of Samnite race, and who were often regarded as constituting only a portion
of the Samnite people, while at other times they are treated as a distinct and
independent nation. They inhabited the southern portion of Samnium, in the more
extensive sense of that name, - a wild and mountainous region bordering on Lucania
towards the S., on Apulia to the E., and on Campania towards the W. No marked
natural boundary separated them from any one of these neighboring nations; but
they occupied the lofty masses and groups of the central Apennines, while the
plains on each side, and the lower ranges that bounded them, belonged to their
more fortunate neighbours. The mountain basin formed by the three tributaries
of the Vulturnus, - the Tamarus (Tamaro), the Calor (Calore), and the Sabatus
(Sabbato), which unite their waters near Beneventum, with the valleys of these
rivers themselves, surrounded on all sides by lofty and rugged ranges of mountains,
- may be regarded as constituting the centre and heart of their territory; while
its more southern portion comprised the upper valley of the Aufidus and the lofty
group of mountains in which that river takes its rise. Their name was derived,
according to the statement of ancient writers, from hirpus, the Sabine or Samnite
name of a wolf; and, in accordance with this derivation, their first ancestors
were represented as being guided to their new settlements by a wolf. (Strab. v.
p. 250; Serv. ad Aen. xi. 785.) This tradition appears to indicate that the Hirpini
were regarded as having migrated, like the other Sabellian races in the S. of
Italy, from more northerly abodes; but we have no indication of the period, or
supposed period, of this migration, and, from their position in the fastnesses
of the central Apennines, it is probable that they were established from a very
early time in the region which we find them occupying when they first appear in
history.
The early history of the Hirpini cannot be separated from that of the Samnites
in general. Indeed it is remarkable that their name does not once occur in history
during the long protracted struggle between the Romans and the Samnite confederacy,
though their territory was often the theatre of the war, and several of their
cities, especially Maleventum, are repeatedly mentioned as bearing an important
part in the military operations of both powers. Hence it is evident that the Hirpini
at this time formed an integral part of the Samnite league, and were included
by the Roman annalists (whose language on such points Livy follows with scrupulous
fidelity) under the general name of Samnites, without attempting to distinguish
between the several tribes of that people. For the same reason we are unable to
fix the exact period at which their subjugation was effected; but it is evident
that it must have been completed before the year 268 B.C., when the Roman colony
was established at Beneventum (Liv. Epit. xv.; Vell. Pat. i. 14), a position that
must always have been, in a military point of view, the key to the possession
of their country.
In the Second Punic War, on the contrary, the Hirpini appear as an
independent people, acting apart from the rest of the Samnites; Livy even expressly
uses the name of Samnium in contradistinction to the land of the Hirpini. (Liv.
xxii. 13, xxiii. 43.) The latter people was one of those which declared in favour
of Hannibal immediately after the battle of Cannae, B.C. 216 (Id. xxii. 61, xxiii.
1); but the Roman colony of Beneventum never fell into the hands of the Carthaginian
general, and as early as the following year three of the smaller towns of the
Hirpini were recovered by the Roman praetor M. Valerius (Id. xxiii. 37). In B.C.
214 their territory was the scene of the operations of Hanno against Tiberius
Gracchus, and again in B.C. 212 of those of the same Carthaginian general with
a view to the relief of Capua. (Id. xxiv. 14-16, xxv. 13, 14.) It was not till
B.C. 209, when Hannibal had lost all footing in the centre of Italy, that the
Hirpini were induced to make their submission to Rome, and purchased favourable
terms by betraying the Carthaginian garrisons in their towns. (Id. xxvii. 15.)
The next occasion on which the Hirpini figure in history is in the
Social War (B.C. 90), when they were among the first to take up arms against Rome:
but in the campaign of the following year (B.C. 89), Sulla having taken by assault
Aeculanum, one of their strongest cities, the blow struck such terror into the
rest as led them to make offers of submission, and they were admitted to favourable
terms. (Appian, B.C. i. 39, 51.) Even before this there appears to have been a
party in the nation favourable to Rome, as we are told that Minatius Magius (the
ancestor of the historian Velleius), who was a native of Aeculanum, was not only
himself faithful to the Roman cause, but was able to raise an auxiliary legion
among his countrymen, with which he supported the Roman generals in Campania.
(Vell. Pat. ii. 16.) The Hirpini were undoubtedly admitted to the Roman franchise
at the close of the war, and from this time their national existence was at an
end. They appear to have suffered less than their neighbours the Samnites from
the ravages of the war, but considerable portions of their territory were confiscated,
and it would seem, from a passage in Cicero, that a large part of it had passed
into the hands of wealthy Roman nobles. (Cic. de Leg. Agr. iii. 2; Zumpt, de Colon.
p. 258.)
By the division of Italy under Augustus, the Hirpini were separated
from the other Samnites, and placed in the 2nd Region together with Apulia and
Calabria, while Samnium itself was included in the 4th Region. (Plin. iii. 11.
s. 16, 12. s. 17.) The same separation was retained also in the later divisions
of Italy under the Empire, according to which Samnium, in the more confined sense
of the name, formed a small separate province, while Beneventum and the greater
part, if not the whole, of the other towns of the Hirpini, were included in the
province of Campania. The Liber Coloniarum, indeed, includes all the towns of
Samnium, as well as those of the Hirpini, among the Civitates Campaniae; but this
is probably a mistake. (Lib. Col. pp. 229-239; Mommsen, ad Lib. Col. pp. 159,
205, 206; Marquardt, Handb. d. Rom. Alterthumer. vol. iii pp. 62, 63.)
The national characteristics of the Hirpini cannot be separated from
those of the other Samnites, which are described under the general article of
Samnium. Under the same head is given a more particular description of the physical
geography of their country: the mountain chains and groups by which it is intersected
being so closely connected with those of the more northern districts of Samnium,
that it is convenient to consider them both together. Nor is it always easy to
separate the limits of the Hirpini from those of the neighbouring Samnite tribes;
more especially as our authorities upon this point relate almost exclusively to
the Imperial times, when the original distinctions of the tribes had been in great
measure obliterated. The rivers and valleys which constitute the main features
of the Hirpinian territory, have been already briefly noticed. Pliny's list of
the towns in the 2nd Region is more than usually obscure, and those of the Hirpini
and of Apulia are mixed up together in a most perplexing manner. The towns which
may be assigned with certainty to the Hirpini are: Beneventum by far the most
important city in this part of Italy, and which is often referred to Samnium,
but must have properly been included in the Hirpini, and is expressly called by
Pliny the only Roman colony in their territory (Plin. iii. 11. s. 16); Aeculanum
also a flourishing and important town, nearly in the heart of their territory;
Abellinum, on the confines of Campania, and near the sources of the Sabatus; Compsa,
near the head waters of the Aufidus and bordering on Lucania; Aquilonia and Romulea
near the frontiers of Apulia, in the SE. portion of the Hirpinian territory; Trivicum
and Equus Tuticus also adjoining the Apulian frontiers; and, N. of the last-mentioned
city, Murgantia near the sources of the Frento, which seems to have been the furthest
of the Hirpinian towns towards the NE., if at, least it be correctly placed at
Baselice. In the valley of the Tamarus, N. of the territory of Beneventum, were
situated the Ligures Barbiani Et Corneliani, a colony of Ligurians transplanted
to the heart of these mountain regions in B.C. 180 (Liv. xl. 38, 41), and which
still continued to exist as a separate community in the days of Pliny. (Plin.
iii. 11. s. 16; Lib. Col. p. 235.) Of the minor towns of the Hirpini, three are
mentioned by Livy (xxiii. 37) as retaken by the praetor M. Valerius in B.C. 215;
but the names given in the MSS. (see Alschefski, ad boc.), Vcscellium, Vercellium,
and Sicilinum, are probably corrupt: they are all otherwise unknown, except that
the Vescellani are also found in Pliny's list of towns. (Plin. l. c.) Ferentinum,
mentioned also by Livy (x. 17), in connection with Romulea, is also wholly unknown.
Fratulum (Phratouolon, Ptol. iii. 1. § 71), of which the name is found only in
Ptolemy, is equally uncertain. Taurasia mentioned as a town only in the celebrated
epitaph of Scipio Barbatus, had left its name to the Taurasini Campi not far from
Beneventum, and must therefore have been itself situated in that neighbourhood.
Aletrium, of which the name is found in Pliny (Aletrini, iii. 11. s. 16), has
been conjectured to be Calitri, a village in the upper valley of the Aufidus,
not far from Conza. Of the other obscure names given by the same author, it is
impossible (as already observed) to determine which belong to the Hirpini.
The most remarkable natural curiosity in the land of the Hirpini was
the valley and lake, or rather pool, of Amsanctus, celebrated by Virgil in a manner
that shows its fame to have been widely spread through Italy. (Virg. Aen. vii.
563.) It is remarkable as the only trace of volcanic action remaining in the central
chain of the Apennines. (Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 191.)
The country of the Hirpini, notwithstanding its rugged and mountainous
character, was traversed by several Roman roads, all of which may be regarded
as connected with the Via Appia. The main line of that celebrated road was carried
in the first instance direct from Capua to Beneventum: here it branched into two,
the one leading directly by Aeculanum, Romulea, and Aquilonia, to Venusia and
thence to Tarentum: this was the proper Via Appia; the other known from the time
of the emperor Trajan (who first rendered it practicable throughout for carriages)
as the Via Trajana which proceeded from Beneventum by Forum Novum (Buonalbergo),
and Equus Tuticus (S. Eleuterio), to Aecae in Apulia, and thence by Herdonea and
Canusium to Brundusium. The fuller consideration of these two great lines of highway
is reserved for the article Via Appia Their course through the country of the
Hirpini has been traced with great care by Mommsen. (Topografia degli Irpini,
in the Bullettino dell' Inst. Archeol. 1848, pp. 6-13.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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