The Oenotrians (Οἴνωτρες, meaning "tribe led by Oenotrus" or "people from the land of vines - Οἰνωτρία") were an ancient Italic people who inhabited a territory in Southern Italy from

Paestum Paestum ( , , ) was a major ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Magna Graecia (southern Italy). The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order, dating from about 550 to 450 BC, whi ...

to southern Calabria. By the sixth century BC, the Oenotrians had been absorbed into other

Italic tribes The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. The Italic peoples are descended from the Indo-European speaking peoples who inhabited Italy from at leas ...

. According to

Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to: *Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium'' *Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC * Pausanias of Sicily, physician of t ...

, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...

, Oenotria was named after Oenotrus, the youngest of the fifty sons of Lycaon who migrated there from Arcadia in Peloponnese,

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

. According to Antoninus Liberalis and Hellanicus, their arrival triggered the migration of the

Elymians The Elymians ( grc-gre, Ἔλυμοι, ''Élymoi''; Latin: ''Elymi'') were an ancient tribal people who inhabited the western part of Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity. Origins According to Hellanicus of Lesbos, the Elymians ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. The settlement of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

s with the first stable colonies, such as Metapontum, founded on a native one (Metabon), pushed the Oenotrians inland. From these positions a "wear and tear war" was started off with the Greek colonies, which they plundered more than once. From the 5th century BC onwards, they disappeared under the pressure of an

Oscan Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including ...

people, the Lucanians. Virgil mentions them as the settlers of Hesperia whose descendants now call their land Italy. They are generally depicted as belonging to the Pelasgians.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

mentions that "...opposite to Velia are Poiitia and Isacia, both known by one name, that of Oenotrides, a proof that Italy was formerly possessed by the Oenotrians". A likely derivation of the ethnonym Oenotrian would be the

οἶνος (''oinos''), "wine", as the Oenotrians inhabited a territory rich in

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineya ...

s, with Oenotria (or Enotria) being extended to refer to the entirety of Southern Italy. Hesychius mentions the word οἴνωτρον (''oinōtron''), a kind of a vine stake.

Language & Origins

According to a traditionalist view, the Oenotrians represent the southern branch of a very old and different ethno-linguistic layer from the proto-Latin one, which would have occupied the

Tyrrhenian sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (; it, Mar Tirreno , french: Mer Tyrrhénienne , sc, Mare Tirrenu, co, Mari Tirrenu, scn, Mari Tirrenu, nap, Mare Tirreno) is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian pe ...

area from

Liguria it, Ligure , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

('' Ligurian/ Sicanian'' layer). Previously it was thought that the Oenotrians might have spoken a pre-

Indo European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

language. In 1991 inscriptions dating from the 6th or 5th century BC were discovered in the ancient Oenotrian settlement of Tortora, Calabria, revealing that the Oenotrians spoke an Italic language.

Notes

{{reflist Ancient peoples of Italy Greek tribes Pelasgians

Language & Origins

See also

Notes