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

Studies of Samnite genies in Samnium and Campania show the movement of
elite groups between the two regions. The investigation has also revealed that a number
of genres were attested in leading roles at different locations, such as the Staii, Statii,
Calavii, Magii and Satrii.
7.3. Political institutions of Samnium and Campania
In the second chapter, I argued that the literary accounts, coins and the triumphal fasti
suggest that the Samnite tribes and urban communities formed loose temporary alliances
to wage wars and promote common religious cults. Defeat in the Samnite wars resulted
in the breaking up of military alliances and the birth of individual Samnite states. The
chapter focuses on the political institutions of the Pentri tribe, the best researched
territory which has yielded the largest amount of epigraphic and archaeological
evidence. Until further evidence emerges, the model of La Regina has been accepted as
the most plausible. This model suggests that the Pentri formed a federal state between
the fourth and first centuries BC. I have, however, pointed out that the model allows
little possibility for constitutional developments as result of the foundation of the colony
at Aesemia. The changes in the settlement system, the growth of rural settlements and
slow urbanization in the second century BC may also have contributed to the
modification of the political system in the period between the fourth and the first
centuries BC. New epigraphic data may shed more light on the relations between the
hill-forts, settlement system and the political institutions to allow us to compare similar
relations in the territories of the Lucani and Marsi.
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