Italic people in the context of "Ancient peoples of Italy"

The Osci (also called Oscans, Opici, Opsci, Obsci, Opicans) were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum before and during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the language of the Samnites was called Oscan, the Samnites were never referred to as Osci, nor were the Osci called Samnites.

Traditions of the Opici fall into the legendary period of Italian history, roughly from the beginning of the first millennium BC until the foundation of the Roman Republic. No consensus can be reached concerning their location and language. By the end of this period, the Oscan language had evolved and was spoken by a number of sovereign tribal states. By far the most important of these in terms of military prowess and wealth was the Samnites, who rivalled Rome for about 50 years in the second half of the 4th century BC, sometimes being allies, and sometimes at war with the city, until they were finally subdued with considerable difficulty and were incorporated into the Roman state.

The Oenotrians or Enotrians were an ancient Italic people who inhabited a territory in Southern Italy from Paestum to southern Calabria. By the sixth century BC, the Oenotrians had been absorbed into other Italic tribes.

The socii (English: /ˈsoʊʃiaɪ/ SOH-shee-eye) or foederati (English: /ˌfɛdəˈreɪtaɪ/ FED-ə-RAY-ty) were confederates of Rome and formed one of the three legal denominations in Roman Italy (Italia) along with the core Roman citizens (Cives Romani) and the extended Latini. The Latini, who were simultaneously special confederates (Socii Latini) and semi-citizens (Cives Latini), derived their name from the Italic people of which Rome was part (the Latins) but did not coincide with the region of Latium in central Italy as they were located in colonies throughout the peninsula. This tripartite organisation lasted from the Roman expansion in Italy (509-264 BC) to the Social War (91–87 BC), when all peninsular inhabitants south of the Po river were awarded Roman citizenship.

Treaties known as foedus served as the basic template for Rome's settlement with the large array of tribes and city-states of the whole Italian peninsula. The confederacy had its origin in the foedus Cassianum ("Treaty of Cassius", 493 BC) signed by the fledgling Roman Republic with its neighbouring Latin city-states shortly after the overthrow of the Roman monarchy in 510 BC. This provided for mutual defence by the two parties on the basis of an equal contribution to the annual military levy, which was probably under Roman overall command. The terms of the treaty were probably more acceptable to the Latins than the previous type of Roman hegemony, that of the Tarquin kings, as the latter had probably required the payment of tribute and not a simple military obligation.

Italus or Italos (from Ancient Greek: Ἰταλός) was a legendary king of the Oenotrians, ancient people of Italic origin who inhabited the region now called Calabria, in southern Italy. In his Fabularum Liber (or Fabulae), Gaius Julius Hyginus recorded the myth that Italus was a son of Penelope and Telegonus (a son of Odysseus by Circe).

According to Aristotle (Politics) and Thucydides (History of the Peloponnesian War), Italus was the eponym of Italy (Italia). Aristotle, writing in the 4th century BCE, relates that, according to tradition, Italus converted the Oenotrians from a pastoral society to an agricultural one and gave them various ordinances, being the first to institute their system of common meals.

The Monti Aurunci (or Aurunci Mountains) is a mountain range of southern Lazio, in central Italy. It is part of the Antiappennini, a group running from the Apennines chain to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where it forms the promontory of Gaeta. It is bounded to the north-west by the Ausoni Mountains, to the north by the Liri river, to the east by the Ausente, to the south-east by the Garigliano and to the south by the Tyrrhenian sea. The line between the Aurunci and the Ausoni has not been clearly established but the Aurunci are considered by convention to be east of a line through Fondi, Lenola, Pico, S. Giovanni and Incarico. Altitudes vary from hills to the 1,533 m of Monte Petrella. Main peaks include the Redentore (1,252 m) and Monte Sant'Angelo (1,402 m). They include a regional park, the Parco Naturale dei Monti Aurunci, created in 1997.

The mountains take the name from the ancient tribe of the Aurunci, an offshoot of the Ausoni. Both tribes were derived from the Italic people who were called by the Romans the Volsci; hence, the Monti Lepini, the Monti Ausoni and the Monti Aurunci are also called the Volsci or Volscian Chain. Coincidentally they are all of the same karst topography and have the same orogeny, which is not quite the same as the Apennines proper.