Aurunker

Settlement area of ​​the Aurunker in the 4th century BC Chr.

The Aurunker ( Greek Αὔρουγκοι ; Latin Aurunci ; also Ausones ) were an Italian people who lived in the regions southeast of Rome in pre-Roman times .

The Aurunker belonged to the Oscar ethnic and language group. Their settlement area was between the rivers Liris and Volturnus , in the border area between Latium and Campania . Their capital was Suessa (today's Sessa Aurunca in the province of Caserta ). In prehistoric times, ie before their area was reduced by the advance of the Samnites and Sidicins , their settlement area seems to have been larger and expanded from the Volsker Mountains to the Campanian plain.

In the Greek form Αὔσονες ( Ausones ) the name was also used for the inhabitants of a wide area that encompassed more than the actual settlement areas of the Aurunker. According to Greek legends, the Ausones are said to have conquered the Aeolian Islands long before the Greek colonization of southern Italy and Sicily under the leadership of their king Liparos . In poetry the name Ausonia was later used for all of central Italy, sometimes even as a metonymy for Italy as such. According to the Ausons, a Late Bronze Age / Early Iron Age culture has been used in archeology since the publications by Bernabò Breas , which occurred on the Aeolian Islands from around the middle of the 13th to the 9th century BC. Chr is detectable and -. In contrast to the preceding Milazzese culture - strong parallels to simultaneous cultures of mainland Italy disclosed as ausonisch designated or their periods as Ausonikum I and II.

During the 4th century BC The remaining settlement areas of the Aurunker came under the rule of the Romans , who in the years 345, 340, 337 and 314 BC. Were at war against them. In the period that followed, the Aurunkers quickly adopted the culture and language of the Romans.

literature

• Christian Hülsen : Aurunci . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Col. 2554.
• Umberto Pappalardo: Ausones. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 2, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01472-X , Col. 331 f.
• Christopher J. Smith : The Aurunci and Sidicini. In: Gary D. Farney, Guy Bradley (Eds.): The Peoples of Ancient Italy. De Gruyter, Boston / Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-1-61451-520-3 , pp. 447-460.

Web links

Wiktionary: Aurunker  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

1. ↑ Strabo 5,233.
2. ↑ Diodorus 5,7,5-6.
3. ↑ Cf. Christian Hülsen , Ausones and Ausonia , in: RE, Vol. II, 2, Col. 2561.
4. ↑ Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri : The Bronze Age in Sicily , in: Harry Fokkens, Anthony Harding (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook often the European Bronze Age , Oxford University Press 2013, pp. 622, 664f.