ABSTRACT

THE Picene civilization is so distinctive in character that it must be given a chapter to itself, albeit a short one. This peculiar civilization has already been briefly noticed in connexion with the Novilara group of graves and inscriptions on the coast of Umbria. We must now follow its southern extension in Picenum proper and beyond. Picenum alone made up the fifth regio of Augustus. It extended from the river lEsis north of Ancona, southwards to the river Matrinus, and inland from the Adriatic coast to the ridge of the Apennines which at certain points here approaches the sea by less than forty miles. Thus it by no means corresponds with the modern Marche, which have both northern and southern frontiers further north. But the former ager Gal/klls, which Augustus included in Umbria, was in earlier times often thought of as part of Picenum, and the Romans might speak of it as "in Piceno," at least as late as the third century B.C. It would appear, however, that this involved an abbreviation-" Picenum," or "ager Picenus" standing for" ager Picenus et Gallicus," which is the phrase of the Lex Flaminia of 232 B.C., and as a rule the two were distinguished. The southern part of Picenum itself was occupied by the Prretuttii, a tribe whose name is preserved in the modern Abruzzi (AprJltillm in the seventh century A.D.), and whose territory, lying between the Vomanus and the Tessinus, included the Truentus with Castrum Nouum, Interamnia, and Hadria (the modern Atri).