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

2.6. Conclusions
Literary accounts of the Samnite Wars, the triumphal Fasti and coins with the legend
SAUNITAN suggest the existence of an ethnically based Samnite military alliance.
Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus mention a general assembly or assemblies
(concilium and xoivi o-vvoboc) probably the council or councils of a Samnite
military alliance, along with the leaders of Samnite troops during the wars. It is not
explicit in the sources whether the alliance was permanent or formed yearly or on a
temporary basis to carry out military campaigns or for defence. The members of this
alliance may also have changed from time to time.
The use of the term Samnium in literary sources changed significantly between
the fourth and first centuries. During the Samnite Wars it referred to the lands of the
members of the ethnic military alliance. The voting tribes and the Augustan regions
suggest that by the time of Augustus Samnium denoted only the area of a number of
settlements around Bovianum. Roman sources emphasise tribal divisions after the
Sainnite Wars: the territories of the Hirpini, Caudini and Carracini were separated
from the Pentri. The Romans might have encouraged the separate formation of these
tribal states. After the Samnite Wars use of the ethnic Samnite was limited to the
Pentri. The state of the Pentri yields the largest amount of epigraphic and
archaeological evidence for a study of its political system. The epigraphic evidence
covers the period between the Samnite Wars and the Social War. The office of
ineddix tuticus appears in a number of locations in Samnium, but is never qualified
326 La Regina (1989) 339.
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