Bruttians
The Bruttians were an ancient Italic people. They inhabited the southern extremity of Italy, from the frontiers of Lucania to the Sicilian Straits and the promontory of Leucopetra. This roughly corresponds to the modern region of Calabria.
Occupying originally the mountains and hills of modern Calabria, they were the southernmost branch of the Osco-Umbrian Italic tribes, and were ultimately descended from the Samnites through the process of ver sacrum.
They are remembered as pillagers and conquerors of the ancient Greek poleis in Magna Graecia and brave rebels of the Romans.
The Museo dei Brettii e degli Enotri in Cosenza contains much recent data on the Bruttii.
Etymology
The name Bruttii must have been ancient since Diodorus speaks of the Bruttians as having expelled the remainder of the Sybarites, who had settled Sybaris on the Traeis in 446/445 BC after the destruction of their own city.The first archaeological evidence for the existence of Bruttii is an inscription "Bruties esum" on pottery in southern Campania from the mid 6th century BC.
The name is Indo-European. It is similar to Illyrian ethnonym Brentii from *brentos. A close variant is attested in the name of the Bruttii in ancient Greek and the name of the community on its coinage. Polybius, in more than one passage, calls it ἡ Βρεττιανὴ Χώρα, likely corresponding to the natives' name for their land, "Brettiōn".
After 356 BC when the Bruttii became independent, the name of the Bruttii became synonyms with "rebels" and "fugitive slaves" for the Lucanians and the ancient sources of the period.
Geography
The land of the Bruttii covered almost the entire current province of Cosenza, except the northernmost part which was the southern part of historical Lucania, from which it was separated by a line drawn from the river Laus near the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Crathis near the Gulf of Tarentum. On the west it was washed by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and on the south and east by that known in ancient times as the Sicilian Sea, including under that appellation the Gulf of Tarentum. Their territory corresponds approximately to modern Calabria, which was named as such only during Byzantine times.Livy uses the term Bruttii provincia.
It was included by Augustus in the Third Region, together with Lucania; and the two provinces appear to have continued united for most administrative purposes until the fall of the Roman Empire, and were governed conjointly by a magistrate termed a Corrector. The Liber Coloniarum however treats the Provincia Bruttiorum as distinct from that of Lucania.
The term Bruttium has no evidence in ancient and late ancient times, and only the "land of the Bruttii" or Brittii is attested. This name remained unchanged even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire until from 650 AD the northern area under the direct control of the Lombards is indicated as Bruttium or Brettia in Byzantine documents.
History
Origins
The land occupied by the Bruttii was inhabited in the earliest times by the Oenotrians, a native Italic tribe whose name refers to winemaking, of which the Conii and Morgetes appear to have been subordinate divisions. It was while the Oenotrians were still masters of the land that the first Greek trading outposts were founded; and the beauty of the climate and country, as well as the rapid prosperity attained by these first settlements, proved so attractive that within a few years many Greek colonies appeared.The geographer Stephanus of Byzantium who lived in the 6th century AD, citing Antiochus of Syracuse but above all Aristophanes, points out that the Brettii were already mentioned in the 5th century BC in particular referring to the bruttia pix from the forests of the Sila region. The main wealth of Bruttium came from its forests especially in the conifers of the Sila mountains which provided shelter for grazing cattle and were a source of timber and pitch, used for waterproofing in shipbuilding or for terracotta containers, for sealing the lids of dolia for food products, and also used in medicine or cosmetics.
In the course of the 4th century a great change took place; the Lucanians, who had been gradually extending their conquests towards the south, and had already made themselves masters of the northern parts of Oenotria, now pressed forwards into the Bruttian peninsula, and established their dominion over the interior of that country and many of the Greek outposts. This probably took place after their great victory over the Thurii, near Laüs, in 390 BC.
The rise of the Bruttii is dated by ancient authors to approximately 356 BC at the time of the expedition of Dion from Athens against Dionysius the Younger of Syracuse. The wars of the latter as well as of his father with the Greek cities in southern Italy and the state of confusion and weakness to which these were reduced in consequence, probably contributed in a great degree to pave the way for the rise of the Bruttian power.
The Bruttii are represented by some ancient authors as a congregation of rebellious natives; Justin describes them as headed by 500 youths of Lucanian origin who joined the shepherds living in the forests together with other predecessor Italic tribes from the area, not just the Oenotrians, but also the Ausones, Mamertines and Sicels. These groups are described as mostly fugitive slaves by Diodorus and as "experts in affairs of war". In these stories because of their social conditions the name of the Bruttii acquired the meaning of "rebels" or "fugitive slaves".
The Bruttii spoke a variant of Oscan and Illyrian settlement in older periods provided considerable Illyrian elements.
A recent proposal is that the majority of the Brettii descended from indigenous populations of protohistoric tradition, of whom we have inscriptions in the Achaean alphabet and in the Paleo-Italic language across almost the entire territory of present-day Calabria. The Brettii, therefore, would not be slaves or descendants of the Lucanians but rather Italics from an ethnic substratum of the Oenotri starting at least from the 5th BC.
Development
The progress of the Bruttii after their first appearance in history was rapid. Expansionist aims began, and the Bruttians managed important successes both in the south and north of their territory until they impacted the east and west with the cities of Magna Graecia. They quickly became numerous and powerful enough to defy the Lucanians, and maintained their independence in the mountain districts of the interior. Their independence seems to have been readily acknowledged by the Lucanians.The Bruttian tribes formed themselves into numerous small villages a few kilometres from each other, interspersed with fortified urban nuclei, in which they gathered the higher social classes to make decisions for the management and defense of neighbouring villages. Money was minted, and the social fabric began to take shape with the consolidation of social classes, the most important being the warriors.
They coalesced into a league, the Confoederatio Bruttiorum, the culmination of the expansion, culture and economy of the Bruttii, and made Consentia their capital. The other main cities were Pandosia, Aufugum, Argentanum, Clampetia, Bergae, Besidiae and Ocriculum.
In the phase preceding the Roman occupation of the region in the Hellenistic age, archaeology has identified around sixty indigenous centres in Calabria, of which fifteen are fortified.
Wars with Greek cities
Less than 30 years after their first revolt, they united with the Lucanians as allies against their Greek neighbours and attacked and occupied the Greek cities of Hipponium, Terina, and Thurii. The latter applied for assistance to Alexander, king of Epirus, who crossed over into Italy with an army, and carried on the war for several successive campaigns, during which he reduced Heraclea, Consentia, and Terina; but finally perished in a battle against the combined forces of the Lucanians and Bruttii, near Pandosia, 326 BC.They next had to contend against the arms of Agathocles of Syracuse, who ravaged their coasts with his fleets, took the city of Hipponium, which he converted into a strong fortress and naval station, and compelled the Bruttians to conclude a disadvantageous peace. But they soon broke this treaty; and recovered possession of Hipponium. This appears to have been the period when the Bruttian nation had reached its highest pitch of power and prosperity; it was not long before they had to contend with a more formidable adversary, and as early as 282 BC they joined the Lucanians and Samnites against the growing power of Rome.
Pyrrhic War
A few years later they are mentioned as sending auxiliaries to the army of Pyrrhus, but after his defeat and his expulsion from Italy in 275 BC they had to bear the full brunt of the war. After repeated campaigns and successive triumphs of the Roman generals, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus and Lucius Papirius, the Bruttii were finally reduced to submission, and compelled to purchase peace by the surrender of one-half of the great forest of Sila, so valuable for its pitch and timber.The Brettian settlement system seems to have dissolved probably following the defeat of Pyrrhus. The cities of Bruttium were called allies but forbidden to make alliances on their own and to mint coins. The only advantage granted by Rome was that of preserving the traditional laws, magistracies and customs: it was a formal autonomy, because the Roman garrisons installed in the fortified citadels ensured that everything was carried out according to Roman interests.
In the decades preceding the 2nd Punic war, the cities and agricultural landscapes of the Bruttii show a picture of general impoverishment, a consequence of the destruction of the Pyrrhic war and the political and social upheavals affecting the cities of Magna Graecia.