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

Scholars have also tried to establish relations between the touta and the pagi
and vici: Salmon thought that the pagi were administrative sub-units of the touta233
The pagi included vici, oppida and castella, which therefore did not have political
lives of their own. Capogrossi Colognesi rejects Salmon's scheme, arguing that we
have no evidence to confirm relations between the tribal units and the pagi. He
concludes that this and the attribution of political life to the pagi are based on a
preconception of Schulten, who was influenced by partial knowledge of the pagi of
Genpan tribes234. Capogrossi Colognesi thinks it unlikely that the vici had no
political or administrative importance. He points out that Strabo and Livy say that the
Samnites lived xccµriböv and vicatim, `in villages' and not pagatim, `in pagi'. I
agree with Capogrossi Colognesi that the pagi were introduced in the territory of
Beneventum and those of the Vestini and Paeligni by the Roman state, and that
Salmon's suggestion that the pagi formed the political and administrative sub-unit of
the touta is without basis. If the touta had a sub-unit, we are not aware of what it was
called.
In conclusion, after the fourth century BC sporadic epigraphic evidence
suggests that the term touta often denoted an urban centre and its territory. However
in Samnium, that is the region of the Pentri, because of the lack of direct evidence,
the question of whether touta denoted a local urban centre and its territory or a larger
ethnic community or both, must be left open for now. I accept the view that rejects
the idea that a touta was formed of a number of pagi. This does not mean that a touta
did not have sub-units, but only that we do not have information about them. We are
233 Salmon (1967) 79-80; Cornell (1995) 345 follows Salmon's view: `A group of such pagi would
together form a larger tribal unit, for which the Oscan term was touto (Latin populus)'.
234 For criticism of Salmon's concept of the pagi see Capogrossi Colognesi (2002) 171-5.
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