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

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

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

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centred community. 224 A similar meaning has been also suggested <strong>for</strong> the touta<br />

marouca, which designated those who <strong>for</strong>med an autonomous community around the<br />

urban centre called Teate Marrucinorum in the Roman period. 225 In the Tabula<br />

Bantina, the expression bansae touta refers to the inhabitants <strong>of</strong> Bantia, a single<br />

community in the last quarter <strong>of</strong> the second century BC. 226 Prosdocimi has argued <strong>for</strong><br />

links between the term touta and the citadel <strong>of</strong> a pre-urban and urban centre called in<br />

Oscan ocri/ocar (in Latin arx, in Greek akro-). 227<br />

It seems that the touta in all these<br />

cases, apart from the tuta safina, was probably equivalent to the Latin term populus.<br />

The fact that in Samnium the noun touta does not appear qualified by an<br />

adjective which indicates its geographical extension makes it difficult to define, since<br />

it could be used to describe a larger entity (nomen or tribe), but also a community<br />

within the touta. The use <strong>of</strong> the word populus has a similar double sense in Latin: the<br />

populus Veientanus was part <strong>of</strong> the Roman state, the populus Romanus. In the<br />

previous section I cited evidence <strong>for</strong> the development <strong>of</strong> distinct city-based<br />

communities. 228 This raises the question <strong>of</strong> whether touta denoted the state <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Pentri or local Pentrian communities or both.<br />

A second problem regarding administrative terminology is also related to the<br />

notion <strong>of</strong> Samnium as a tribal state. It is a commonly held view that the<br />

administrative system <strong>of</strong> the Italic populations was based on territorial units, called<br />

pagi, rather than on cities. In his description <strong>of</strong> the Samnite wars, Cornell suggests<br />

that the pagus was a `canton comprising one or more villages (vici)'. 229 The<br />

expression pagus occurs in Latin inscriptions <strong>of</strong> imperial date in the territory <strong>of</strong> the<br />

224 <strong>for</strong> instance ST Um 1. VIa 29 and VIla 11.<br />

225 The expression appears in the so-called Tabula Rapinensis, which was dated to the mid third<br />

century BC: Cianfarani (1956) 311-327.<br />

226 ST Lu 1.19. Buck (1995) 234-5.<br />

227 Prosdocimi (1978) 29-74.<br />

228 See section 2.3.3.<br />

68

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