Paeligni

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The Paeligni or Peligni were an Italic tribe who lived in the Valle Peligna, in what is now Abruzzo, central Italy.

History

The Paeligni are first mentioned as a member of a confederacy that included the

Dioscuri, Cerfum (a water god), and Anaceta (the Roman Angitia
), a goddess associated with snakes.

On the submission of the

Roman Citizenship
after the Social War, and that was the beginning of the end of their national identity, as they began to adopt Roman culture and language.

Gentes of Paeligni origin

Language

Paelignian
Native toSamnium, Campania, Lucania, Calabria and Abruzzo
Regionsouth and south-central Italy
Extinct1st century BC[citation needed]
Indo-European
  • Old Italic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3pgn
pgn
Glottologpael1234

The known Paeligni inscriptions show that the dialect spoken by these tribes was substantially the same from the northern boundary of the Frentani to some place in the upper

Latin: ite vos porro pacati (cum bona pace), qui hoc scriptum [hbar, 3rd declination neut.] legistis. The form lexe (2nd plural perfect indicative) is closely parallel to the inflection of the same person in Sanskrit
and of quite unique linguistic interest.

The name Paeligni may belong to the NO-class of ethnica (see

paelex, "concubine", it is conceivable that it meant “halfbreeds” and was a name coined in contempt by the conquering Sabines, who turned the touta marouca into the community of the Marrucini. But, when unsupported by direct evidence, even the most tempting etymology is an unsafe guide.[4]

Paelignian and this group of inscriptions generally form the most important link in the chain of the Italic dialects, as without them the transition from Oscan to Umbrian would be completely lost. The unique collection of inscriptions and antiquities of Pentima and the museum at Sulmona were both created by Professor Antonio de Nino, whose devotion to the antiquities of his native district rescued every single Paelignian monument that we possess.

Fate

None of the Latin inscriptions of the district need be older than Sulla, but some of them both in language and script show the style of his period (e.g. 3087, 3137); and, on the other hand, as several of the native inscriptions, which are all in the Latin alphabet, show the normal letters of the Ciceronian period, there is little doubt that, for religious and private purposes at least, the Paelignian dialect lasted down to the middle of the 1st century BC.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Livy ix. 45, x. 3, and Diod. xx. 101.
  2. ^ Diod. xx. 90.
  3. R. S. Conway
    , The Italic Dialects, p. 216.
  4. ^ For the history of the Paeligni after 90 BC see the references given in C.I.L. ix. 290 (Sulmona, esp. Ovid, e.g. Fasti, iv. 79, Anior. ii. 16; Florus ii. 9; Julius Caesar Commentarii de Bello Civili i. 15) and 296 (Corfinium, e.g. Diodorus Siculus xxxvii. 2, 4, Caes., BC, i. 15).
Attribution
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Paeligni". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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