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

loose federation of settlements he uses the ethnic, for example in the case of the Bruttii.
Apart from the Nucerians the only people to whom he applies the term (twice) is the
Celtic tribe of the Insubres in the Po valley. Admittedly, after the Kupaloi,
Ouxa1aQXZTat and NcartoAIrat Polybius calls them NovxEpivwv EOvos instead of
NouJEQIvoL, but he may have wanted to use a variation to close the sentence. It is also
possible that Polybius thought of the inhabitants of the Sarno valley as a bunch of
barbarians, not worthy of individual mention, in contrast with the inhabitants of the
Greek colonies. This division of Campania also appears in Strabo and Ptolemy, who
consider Cumae and Naples Campanian, but Herculaneum and Pompeii Samnite. 704 The
question of why Nuceria is listed among the coastal towns, when the via Annia ran
through it remains elusive, although, compared to Capua, for instance, it was coastal.
In his description of the Bay of Naples, Strabo mentions Naples, the Heracleian
Fortress (i. e. Herculaneum) and then Pompeii. 'Pompaia past which flows the River
Samus, was once held by the Osci; then by the Tyrrheni and the Pelasgi; after that, by
the Samnites but they too were ejected from the place'. 705 He then continues: 'Pompaia,
on the River Sarnus -a river which both takes the cargoes inland and sends them out to
the sea - is the port town of Nola, Nuceria and Acerra'.
Pliny the Elder mentions Nuceria three times, two of which I have already
discussed. The third mention comes in a list of the communities of the Bay: 'On the
coast stands Naples, itself also a colony of the Chalcidians, named Parthenope from the
tombs of one of the Sirens, Herculaneum, Pompeii with Mount Vesuvius in view not far
off and watered by the river Sarno, the Nucerian territory and nine miles from the sea
703
Hall (1997) 34.
704 Strabo 5.4.4; Ptolemy 3.173.
705 Strabo 5.4.8.
202