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

It is generally accepted that the word touta is a fundamental expression in the
definition of an autonomous community, people, tribe or city-state in the Oscan and
Umbrian-speaking territories. However, we must remember that we know the
existence of the touta in Samnium only through the adjective in the title of meddix
tuticus. As was noted in the introductory section 2.1, Salmon suggested that the
expression populi Samnitium in Livy denoted the Samnite tribes of the Carracini,
Pentri, Caudini, and the Hirpini and argued that each tribe formed one touts. 219
According to the model of La Regina, the area later called Samnium was
occupied by one centralised, ethnic state between the fourth and first century BC,
which formed one touta. 220 The name of only one tribe, that of the Pentri, appears in
the central Apennines, with Bovianum as its capital. This coherence of settlements in
the region is confirmed by the allocation of most of the settlements in the area to the
Voltinia voting tribe and later in one block to Augustus' fourth Region.
The few inscriptions that attest the word touta appear in other territories too,
and are scattered across a large area and over a long period of time. The earliest
references are from the area of Penna Sant'Andrea and date from the fifth century
BC 221 They mention the safina tuta. In this case, the expression touta must be
interpreted in the widest possible sense, as nomen, meaning 'the Sabine people'. 222
The 2cuQro µaµtQ rtvo refers to an autonomous community formed by the Oscan
speakers at the city of Messina in Sicily from the third century BC. 223 In the Iguvine
Tablets the expressions tota iiouina and tota tarsinate are qualified by the names of
urban centres. In second-century BC Umbria, the tota therefore referred to a city-
219
See section 2.1.1.
220
La Regina (1981) 129-33.
221 ST TE 5 and 7. See also section 2.2.1
222 Prosdocimi (1978a) 50-1.
223
ST Me 1,2,3, Ve 196, Co 1, Bu 62. Morandi 37
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