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

The Greek authors of the fourth century BC tended to use the word in a very broad sense
to denote the indigenous peoples of southern Italy, as opposed to the inhabitants of the
Greek colonies. The Campani, Lucani and Bruttii are treated in literature separately from
the Samnites from an early date. However, Greek sources of the fourth century BC
rarely and imprecisely distinguish the tribes and ethnic communities emerging from the
great mass of the southern regions of Italy.
The second part of the passage from Pseudo-Scylax speaks about the Samnites
inhabiting the land stretching between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas
. 671 The passage
is interesting, because it says that the Samnites were divided into five language groups
or glossal: Aa't QvLoi, OrTtxo% KQapov¬s, BoQEOVTivoL and IIwviccTiriS.
This passage has generated much debate among historians. The identification of the
007TLKOL
with the Opici and the fl¬u c 2t¬is with the Picentes is plausible. The word
AaTtQVLOL has been emended to AartQvtot, that is the Alfaterni. But Salmon's
suggestion that we should identify the KQaµövcc with the Carracini and the
BoQEOVTivoL
with the Frentani does not seem very convincing. rz
Dench concludes that the ethnic name of Opici/Opsci or Osci was invented by
Greek authors to reconstruct the prehistory of a group of Italic peoples living in the
neighbourhood of Greek colonies. 73 The name appears from the fourth century BC
onwards in Greek texts and, without doubt, reflects the Greeks' increasing interest in
their neighbours. They may have been the aboriginal inhabitants of the region, although
there is a confusion in our sources as to who those were exactly. The Opici are first
671
Pseudo-Scylax, Per 15. Mrtä bi I67tvyac är