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

AattpvLoL (perhaps Alfaterni) among the Opici and two other ethnic groups
which are unknown to us makes it very difficult to establish the historical value of this
passage. The Picentes could have formed an ethnic community on the Adriatic by the
mid-fourth century and could therefore have been a reality of the author's time. But we
need to remind ourselves that the name Alfaterni is an emendation in the passage and
that it does not constitute strong evidence for the existence of such an ethnic community.
Nevertheless, the two passages in Pseudo-Scylax reveal two important pieces of
information: first, the population living to the south of the Campani and to the north of
the Lucani on the coast was referred to by the Greeks as Samnite; and second, by the
mid-fourth century BC, internal divisions in this great ethnic conglomeration of the
`Samnites' were becoming more apparent to the Greeks who were their immediate
neighbours.
By the time of the Samnite Wars, the adjective Alfaterna had become an organic
part of the name of Nuceria according to Livy and Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus noted
that 'the inhabitants of Nuceria, which is called Alfaterna, yielding to the persuasion of
certain persons, abandoned their friendship with Rome and made an alliance with the
Samnites' 676 Livy recounts under 308 BC: 'The consuls cast lots for the commands,
Etruria falling to Decius- and Samnium to Fabius. The latter marched -against Nuceria
Alfaterna, and rejecting that city's overtures of peace because its people had declined it
when it was offered them, laid siege to the place and forced it to surrender'. 677 Diodorus
Siculus describes how Nuceria Alfaterna entered the Samnite Wars, forming an alliance
with other, already fighting, Samnite communities, while Livy's passage refers to how
675
Aristotle Pol. 1329b 19; Strabo 5.3.6; 5.4.3.
676
Diod. Sic. 19.65.7.
677
Livy 9.41.2-3.
193