Picentes

The Picentes or Piceni[1] or Picentini were an ancient Italic people who lived from the 9th to the 3rd century BC in the area between the Foglia and Aterno rivers, bordered to the west by the Apennines and to the east by the Adriatic coast.

Picentes may have been Sabine colonists,[3][4] although this is doubted by more recent scholars, who see the South Picenes more closely related to the Sabellians, as Steppe ancestry and Bell Beaker culture materials have been found in central Italy since c. 1600 BC.

Following this progressive and unstoppable expansion of Rome around their territory the Piceni realised that they had supported a great power by which they were surrounded, and hence they broke the alliance and in 269 BC revolted and started the "Picentine war".

Sempronius led his troops into the Aso valley, avoiding a frontal attack on the city of Ascoli Piceno, which would have greatly delayed the campaign.

For Rome, the victory against the Piceni was so important that, in addition to being given a triumph to the consuls, the Senate decided to mint memorial silver coins for the first time.

[8] Between these years part of the Piceno population was deported: the inhabitants of Ortona to Lake Fucino, some colonies founded in Marsica, Campania, giving them land at Paestum and on the river Silarus and assisted them to build a city, Picentia.

The latter thus found themselves having to contend with the Romans on two fronts: the threat was in fact brought both by the besieged inside the city, who could make sorties, and by the troops that had just arrived in Fermo; they were thus defeated, also suffering the loss of the general left to lead the siege, the Marsian Titus Lafrenius.

In 89 BC an army of Marsi tried to undermine the Roman encirclement of the Piceni capital, but failed; the city finally fell on that year, was razed to the ground and its citizens deprived of all property.

At the end of the conflict, the Piceni were ascribed to the Fabia tribe, obtaining Roman citizenship[19] and completing the Romanisation process of the Piceno population, which began in the 3rd century BC.

The guiding exhibit is the kothon, a small typically Picene terracotta vase, with a flattened globular shape, with a narrow mouth and a single handle.

The phase is characterised by a great development of metallurgy, also testified by typical Picene objects, such as the spiral armlets in laminate and the solar boat pectorals with wild duck protomes on the bow and stern, rich in symbolic meanings.

Metallurgy also produces objects of great originality, such as breastplates decorated with human figures linked together by rings or by holding hands; the best known example is the one from Numana.

The fibulae are also produced in the most varied typologies, such as those with a winding bow, a dragon with antennas, a ship; another very typical item of women's clothing is the "disc-stole", made with solar symbols.

The typical material of this period can be considered amber, already attested previously, but with which the best-known objects, coming from Belmonte Picenum, were made in this phase.

An amber route has been identified which from the Baltic reached the coasts of Picenum, where the fossil resin was much appreciated, also due to the characteristics that put it in relation with the solar symbology.

Weapons are now all made of iron, and present a great variety and continuous updating, a rare thing in Italic peoples of the same period; among the offensive weapons of the period we remember the scimitar broadsword of the machaira type and, among those of defense, the typical helmets with reliefs in the shape of animal horns, which however coexist with other helmets of the Greek-Corinthian type.

The dominant archaeological feature of this phase is the massive importation of Greek red-figure pottery, which then spread throughout the Picenum territory through the ports of Numana and Ancona.

This abundance can be explained by thinking of the fact that, after the naval battle of Alalia (540 BC), the Etruscans and the Carthaginians managed to prevent the Greeks from trading freely in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Thus the Adriatic cities of Numana, Spina and Adria flourished, which in any case allowed a commercial outlet for the rich Greek vase production.

Interestingly, a form of Attic pottery was produced by the Greeks specifically for the Piceni; it is the "plate with a high foot", which some archaeologists think was used to serve a typical Picenum product during banquets: olives.

[26] Naturally, even after this date, the history of the Piceni continues, even if its vitality is no longer expressed so much on a cultural (and therefore archaeological) level, as in the important role they played during the Romanisation of the Adriatic coast.

A fundamental event of the period is the arrival of the Senoni Gauls, who occupied the northern part of the Picenum territory, reaching as far as the Esino river, with temporary or limited expansions even further south.

[29] Despite these factors, the Picene culture precisely in this period produced a highly original type of vase, defined by archaeologists as "upper Adriatic ceramics", characterised by female figures seen in profile, so stylised as to recall some forms of modern art.

Excavated tombs in Novilara of the Molaroni and Servici cemeteries show that the Piceni laid bodies in the ground wrapped in garments they had worn in life.

[34] A 2017 analysis of maternal haplogroups from ancient and modern samples indicated a substantial genetic similarity among the modern inhabitants of Central Italy and the area's ancient pre-Roman inhabitants of settlement of Novilara in the province of Pesaro, and evidence of substantial genetic continuity in the region from pre-Roman times to the present with regard to mitochondrial DNA.

[36] From Ancona southward a language of the Umbrian group was originally spoken, today called South Picene, attested mainly in inscriptions.