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

2.2.5. Voting tribes and Augustan regions
After the Social war, the territories of the previous Italian socii became an organic
part of the Roman state. Their major settlements were allotted to already existing
Roman voting units. In assigning the new territories to voting districts, the Roman
administration occasionally seemed to follow previous ethnic borders. 125 In the
central Apennines the formation of the voting units shows signs of geographically
coherent patterns: Bovianum, Aufidena, Terventum, Fagifulae and Saepinum were
assigned to the Voltinia voting tribe. Aesernia was assigned to the Tromentina tribe
soon after the establishment of the Latin colony there in 263 BC. To the east, the
settlements of the Frentani were all attributed to the Arnensis voting tribe, together
with the towns of the Carracini, Cluviae and Iuvanum. Larinum, an independent
settlement of the Frentani, belonged to the Clustumina tribe. Ligures Corneliani and
Baebiani were assigned to the Velina voting tribe. The Caudini were probably
allotted as a whole to the Falernia tribe. To the west of the area assigned to the
Voltinia tribe, all known settlements belong to the Teretina district, thus marking a
clear borderline. 126 To the north, on the other side of the River Sangrus, the Marsian
and Paelignian settlements were put into the same tribe, the Sergia.
One of Augustus' administrative reforms was to overlay the voting tribes with
a new system of regions. Samnium lay in the region that Pliny the Elder calls `the
fourth region, which includes the bravest races in Italy'. '27 It contained the territory
of nine ethnic communities: the Frentani, Marrucini, Paeligni, Marsi, Albenses,
Aequicolani, Vestini, Samnites and Sabini. Pliny describes the land of the Samnites
by listing seven or eight populations or communities: the `colony of Bovianum Vetus
125 Salmon (1967) 43.
126 Allifae, Venafrum, Atina, once Samnite, became praefecturae after the Pyrrhic War.
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