Sangro in the context of "Aufidena"

The Caraceni or Caricini or Carricini were a tribe of the Italic Samnites. According to Salmon, their name comes from the Celtic carreg- and car- <Rock>. According to Ptolemy, they inhabited the most northern part of Samnium, bordering on the Peligni and the Frentani; but more especially the upper valley of the Sagrus (modern Sangro). The only city that he assigns to them is Aufidena. Zonaras describes them as possessing a town or stronghold, which was taken by the Roman consuls Q. Gallus and C. Fabius with difficulty. Aufidena has been identified with the modern Castel di Sangro, which seems, from the inscriptions and other remains discovered there, to have been an ancient town.

Their territory was delimited to the north and east from that of the Frentani, to the south from that of the Pentri, and to the west from that of the Peligni. The tribe divided itself in two groups: the "Car[r]icini supernates", which occupied the northern part of their eastern region centered on the city of Juvanum (whose remains are visible in the territory between the communes of Torricella Peligna and Montenerodomo); and the "Car[r]icini infernates" in the southern part, whose main center was Cluviae (whose ruins have been identified with those at Piano Laroma, a frazione of the commune of Casoli). This small community comprised part of the Samnite Confederation, the great antagonist of the Roman Republic, against which it participated in the Samnite Wars and the Social War. The territory of the Caraceni probably came to be occupied by the Romans in the course of the Second Samnite War (c. 310 BC), and the people were gradually assimilated into the Roman state.

The Frentani were an Italic tribe occupying the tract on the southeast coast of the Italian peninsula from the Apennines to the Adriatic, and from the frontiers of Apulia to those of the Marrucini. They were bounded on the west by the Samnites, with whom they were closely connected, and from whom they were originally descended. Hence Scylax assigns the whole of this line of coast, from the frontiers of Apulia to those of Picenum, to the Samnites. Their exact limits are less clearly defined, and there is considerable discrepancy in the statements of ancient geographers: Larinum, with its territory (extending from the Tifernus (modern Biferno) to the Frento), being by some writers termed a city of the Frentani, while the more general opinion included it in Apulia, and thus made the river Tifernus the limit of the two countries. The northern boundary of the Frentani is equally uncertain; both Strabo and Ptolemy concur in fixing it at the river Sagrus (modern Sangro), while Pliny extends their limits as far as the Aternus, and, according to Mela, they possessed the mouths both of that river and the Matrinus. The latter statement is certainly inaccurate; and Strabo distinctly tells us that the Marrucini held the right bank of the Aternus down to its mouth, while the Vestini possessed the left bank; hence, the former people must have intervened between the Frentani and the mouth of the Aternus. Pliny's account is, however, nearer the truth than that of Strabo and Ptolemy; for it is certain that Ortona and Anxanum (modern Lanciano), both of which are situated considerably to the north of the Sagrus, were Frentanian cities. The latter is indeed assigned by Ptolemy to that people, while Strabo also terms Ortona the port or naval station of the Frentani, but erroneously places it to the south of the river Sagrus. Hence, their confines must have approached within a few miles of the Aternus, though without actually abutting upon that river. On the west, they were probably not separated from the Samnites by any well-marked natural boundary, but occupied the lower slopes of the Apennines as well as the hilly country extending from thence to the sea, while the more lofty and central ridges of the mountains were included in Samnium.

The Winter Line was a series of German and Italian military fortifications in Italy, constructed during World War II by Organisation Todt and commanded by Albert Kesselring. The series of three lines was designed to defend a western section of Italy, focused around the town of Monte Cassino, through which ran the important Highway 6 which led uninterrupted to Rome. The primary Gustav Line ran across Italy from just north of where the Garigliano River flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, through the Apennine Mountains to the mouth of the Sangro River on the Adriatic coast in the east. The two subsidiary lines, the Bernhardt Line and the Hitler Line, ran much shorter distances from the Tyrrehnian Sea to just northeast of Cassino where they would merge into the Gustav Line. Relative to the Gustav Line, the Hitler Line stood to the northwest and the Bernhardt Line to the southeast of the primary defenses.

Before being ultimately broken, the Gustav Line effectively slowed the Allied advance for months between December 1943 and June 1944. Major battles in the assault on the Winter Line at Monte Cassino and Anzio alone resulted in 98,000 Allied casualties and 60,000 Axis casualties.