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

investigated whether this ethnic relation corresponded to common political institutions
in the area. Senatore rightly points out that Beloch did not consider several important
aspects when writing about the ethnic conditions of the region 666 First, in ancient
sources, the name of the leading town Nuceria is sometimes qualified by the adjective
Alfaterna, and appears on coins as nuvkrinurn alafaternum. This adjective helps us to
distinguish the town from two other Nucerias, Nuceria Camellaria and Nuceria
Favoniensis, both situated in Umbria. 667 Perhaps the situations of Suessa Aurunca,
Teanum Sidicinum and Teanum Apulum were similar. But in these cases the adjectives
Auruncus, Sidicinus and Apulus are clearly ethnics: Suessa Aurunca was a settlement in
the territory of the Aurunci, there was a Teanum among the Sidicini and another among
the Apuli. On this analogy, Salmon referred to the Alfaternans in the same way as to the
Aurunci or Sidicini, as if they were an ethnic community, and so did Pallottino and
Sartori . 668 But is it correct to speak about the Alfaterni as an ethnic community? And if
so, were the Alfaterni Samnites? Or does the adjective appear to refer to a pre-Samnite
period in the history of the town?
Our first passage comes from the mid-fourth century BC. Pseudo-Scylax, also
known as Scylax of Caryanda, mentions that the coastal region between the Campani
and Lucani was occupied by the Samnites. 669 The problem of what this vast and
somewhat hazy ethnic meant for Greek and Roman authors has been thoroughly
discussed by Dench. 670 She examines how the use of the ethnic 'Samnite' varied through
time and according to the political and historical milieu in which the author was situated.
616 Senatore (2001) 201.
667 Devoto (1931) 106-7 also suggests that Nuceria was also Nuceriola too, for which we have epigraphic
evidence on the road from Beneventum to Aeclanum, in the territory of the Hirpini.
668 Salmon (1967) 212; Sartori (1953) 154; Pallottino (1981) 92;
669 Ps. Skyl Per. 11; Strabo 5.4.8. inserts the Samnites in the list of those who held Herculaneum and
Pompeii, after the Osci, Tyrrheni and Pelasgi.
670 Dench (1995).
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