Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

6.1. Introduction
Chapter 6. Pompeii and Nuceria
The view that the cities of the Sarno valley and plain, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabiae and
Surrenturn formed a confederation under the leadership of Nuceria Alfaterna was put
forward by Beloch in 1877.657 He also suggested, for the first time, that the meddix
tuticus was the magistrate of the federation, whereas a meddix without the qualifying
adjective was simply a local magistrate. 658 His arguments regarding the public institutions
of the confederation have been rejected, but the idea of the federation is still dominant in
modern historical writing. 659 The archaeological and epigraphic evidence from the region
have increased since Beloch's time and models have been produced for leagues and
confederations in antiquity, so that we can think about them in a more structured way.
Beloch, building on the notion that the region of the river Sarnus was inhabited by
people of common origins prior to the Roman occupation, suggested that this population
formed a political entity which he called the 'Nucerian Confederation'. Beloch's study is
articulated within the framework of late nineteenth-century historical writing, which
viewed ethnic groups as static, with fixed natural boundaries and primarily based on
common descent. Nineteenth-century nationalism promoted the idea that ethnic borders
were identical with political boundaries, and therefore tended to treat ethnic
communities as states. Beloch based his argument on the following fundamental points.
657
Beloch (1877) 285-98.
658
Beloch (1877) 295.
187