Ausones

[3] Originally "Aurunci" was the appellation given by the Romans to the people called "Ausones" by the Greeks:[4][5] Indeed, the two names are merely different forms of the same, as around the 4th century BCE, Latin medial "s" (at this point representing [z]) shifted to “r” (pronounced [r]).

[5][3] The identity of the two is distinctly asserted by Servius,[7] and clearly implied by Cassius Dio,[8] where he says that the name of Ausonia was properly applied only to the land of the Auruncans, between the Volscians and the Campanians.

Hellanicus of Lesbos according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote of the Ausonians as crossing over into Sicily under their king Siculus, where the people meant are clearly the Siculi.

[22] Lycophron, though he does not use the name of Ausonia, repeatedly applies the adjective "Ausontan" both to the country and people, apparently as equivalent to "Italian"; for he includes under the appellation, Arpi in Apulia, Agylla in Etruria, the neighbourhood of Cumae in Campania, and the banks of the Crathis in Lucania.

[23] Apollonius Rhodius, a little later, seems to use the name of Ausonia precisely in the sense in which it is employed by Dionysius Periegetes and other Greek poets of later times (for the whole Italian peninsula).

[citation needed] The core of the Ausonian people lived in a territory termed Ausonia: during the 8th century BC it included what is now southern Lazio and Campania until the Sele river.

On this occasion Livy tells us that "the Ausonian nation was destroyed";[29] it is certain that its name does not again appear in history, and is only noticed by Pliny among the extinct races which had formerly inhabited Latium.

This continuous occupation may have been interrupted violently when during the late 9th century BC the Ausonian civilisation site, Lipara, on the island of Lipari was burned and apparently not rebuilt.

[citation needed] Cales, in the commune of Calvi Risorta (province of Caserta, Campania), of which remains has been found, has been identified as an Ausonian city.

"In multis verbis, in quo antiqui dicebant s, postea dicunt r... foedesum foederum, plusima plurima, meliosem meliorem, asenam arenam."