PICENUM

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 581 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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PICENUM , a

district

DISTRICT

of ancient Italy, situated between the Apennines and the Adriatic, bounded N. by the Senones and S. by the Vestini. The inhabitants were, according to tradition, an offshoot of the Sabines. Strabo (v. 4, I) gives the story of their migration, led by a woodpecker (picus), a bird sacred to Mars, from which they derived their name Picentini (cf.

Dion

DION

. Ital. i. 14, r), just as the Hirpini derived theirs from hirpus, a wolf. The

district

DISTRICT

was conquered by the Romans early in the 3rd century Inc. and the whole territory was divided up among Latin-speaking settlers by the Lex Flaminia in 232 B.C. Hence we have very scanty records of any non-Latin Language that may have been spoken in the district before the 3rd century. Besides the problematic

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

from Belmonte, Nereto and Cupra Maritima (see SABELLIC), we have one or two Latin

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

(probably of the 2nd or even the 1st century B.C.) which contain certain forms showing a distinct affinity with the dialect of

Iguvium

IGUVIUM (mod. Gubbio, q.v.)

(cf. the name Pasdi=Latin Pacidii). Hence there seems some ground for believing that the population which the Romans dispossessed, or held in subjection, really spoke a dialect very much like that of their neighbours in Umbria.
For inscriptions, see R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, p. 449, where the place-names and personal names of the district will also he found; see further, Livy, Epit. xv.; B. V. Head, Historia nun:arum, p. 1g. (R. S. C.)
It was in Picenum, at Asculum, that the Social War broke out in 90 B.C. At the end of the war the district became connected with Pompeius Strabo, and his son Pompey the

Great

GREAT

threw intothe scale on the side of Sulla, in 83 B.C., all the influence he possessed there, and hoped to make it a base against Caesar's legions in 49 B.C. Under

Augustus

AUGUSTUS (a name 1 derived from Lat. augeo, increase, i.e. venerable, majestic, Gr. Ee0avr6s)

it formed the fifth region of Italy, and included twenty-three independent communities, of which five, Ancona, Firmum, Asculum, Hadria and Interamnia, were coloniae. It was reached from Rome by the Via

Salaria

SALARIA, VIA

, and its branch the Via Caecilia. It was also on a branch leading from the Via Flarninia at Nuceria Camellaria to Septempeda. There were also communications from north to

south

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

; a road led from Asculum to Urbs Salvia and Ancona, another from Asculum and Firmum and the coast, another from Urbs Salvia to Potentia, while finally along the whole line of the coast there ran a prolongation of the Via Flaminia, the name of which is not known to us.
At the end of the and century A.D. the north-eastern portion of Umbria was divided from the rest and acquired the name Flaminia, from the high road. For the time it remained united with Umbria for administrative purposes, but passed to Picenum at latest in the time of Constantine, and acquired the name of Flaminia et Picenum Annonarium, the main portion of Picenum being distinguished as Suburbicarium. In an inscription of A.D. 309 Ravenna is actually spoken of as the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

town of Picenum. When the exarchate of Ravenna was founded the part of Picenum Annonarium near the sea became the Pentapolis Maritima, which included the five cities of Ariminum, Pisaurum, Fanum Fortunae, Sena Gallica and Ancona. The exarchate was seized by Luitprand in 727, and Ravenna itself was taken by Aistulf in 752. In the next year, however, the Emperor Pippin took it from him and handed it over to the

pope

, a grant confirmed by his son Charlemagne. (T. As.)

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