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

tuticus was consequently an urban office. In contrast, in the central Apennines, which
lacked large cities, a touta coincided with the nomen. 42 Since the extension of the
touta was tailored to the Campanian urban centres following the Samnite occupation,
it seemed logical to suggest that a touta was originally a nomen, but changed in
substance under new circumstances. La Regina's study in the monumental edition of
Italia omnium terrarum parens sums up his views about the public institutions of the
Samnites 43 La Regina extended Salmon's thesis that the four populi Samnitium each
formed one touta by proposing that the four tribes had together originally formed one
touta before the fourth century BC. 44 However, from the fourth century BC each of
the four populi formed its own touta, a tribal, national state. This supports his
argument of 1981, contra Prosdocimi's study, that the touta was identical with the
nomen.
The latest influential study is that of Letta, who criticised La Regina's equation
of touta with nomen or ethnos. 45 Letta, whose views were strongly
influenced by
Prosdocimi's study of 1978, tried to restrict the meaning of a touta to a local
community also in the central Apennines. 46 Letta rejected the existence of a single
national state in the central Apennines and argued that the autonomous local
communities, the individual touta, formed some kind of pan-Samnite entity, nomen,
what he calls the Samnite League, because the Samnite Wars were waged against the
41 La Regina (1981) 129-37.
42 The idea had already appeared in his publication of (1980) 41.
43 La Regina (1989) 301-432.
44 La Regina (1989) 362.
45 Letta (1994) 387-405.
46
Letta argued that the following pieces of evidence do not fit within the idea of a centralised state: 1.
Allifae during the fourth century BC and Aquilonia during the third century BC minted coins, which
implies their independence from a national, unitary state. 2. Livy refers to the ager Aeserninus under
the year 295 BC, years before the establishment of the Roman colony. 3. An inscription (ST Sa 17)
from Aufidena attests the office of meddix tuticus at a time when the town probably was a praefectura
and its lands were part of the ager Romanus. 4. The ethnic sai(pinaz) is attested on a tile stamp from
Saepinum. Letta argued that a tile factory in Saepinum could not have produced tiles with the name of
the eponymous meddix tuticus of the Pentri state.
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