European Kingdoms

Samnites

Located in central-southern Italy, south-east of Latium, the Samnites were an early Italic people whose language was Oscan, closely related to archaic Latin. They were composed of four separate clans: Hirpini, Caudini, Caraceni, and Pentri, and were grouped together in a loosely-knit confederation.

c.580 - 325 BC

The Marsi are subjects of the Samnites.

480 BC

Hamilcar of Carthage lands a huge army in Sicily in order to confront Syracuse on the island's eastern coast. The Carthaginians are defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Himera, and a long struggle ensues with intermittent warfare between Carthage and Syracuse. The defeat results in substantial political changes in Carthage, and it also results in the loss of the Etruscan cities of Campania in the south during the course of this century, to Rome and the Samnites.

325 - 304 BC

Rome fights the Second Samnite War against the Samnites in 325 BC. During this period the Marsi ally themselves to the Romans.

310 BC

Etruscans allied to the Samnites fight Rome.

309 BC

The Marsi revolt against Roman control and return to the Samnites.

304 - 90 BC

The Samnites are defeated by Rome. Their confederates, the Marsi, accept their reintegration into Roman administrative rule.

90 - 89 BC

Along with the Frentani, Hirpini, Marrucini, Marsi, Paeligni, Picentines, and Vestini, the Saminites and Etruscans fight the Social War (Italian War, or Marsic War) against Rome. The war is the result of increasing inequality in Roman land ownership, and the spark for conflict is delivered by the assassination of the reforming Marcus Livius Drusus. Although defeated, the Italic tribes are granted the Roman citizenship which had previously been withheld from them.

89 BC - AD 590

The Samnite settlement of Maleventum becomes the Roman city of Beneventum. It flourishes, and is considered to be of strategic importance during the the Second Punic War against Carthage. Two of the most important battles of the war are fought nearby; Beneventum in 214 BC, and a raid on the camp of Carthaginian General Hanno which leads to his defeat in 212 BC. The city is sacked and its walls razed by Baduila, king of the Ostrogoths in AD 545 during the war against the Byzantine forces of General Belisarius. In 571, a Lombard chief by the name of Zottone ventures south from Spoleto and founds his own independent duchy at Benevento.