Aequi
Encyclopedia
The Aequi were an ancient people of northeast Latium
Latium
Lazio is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy...

 and the central Appennines of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 who appear in the early history of ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

. After a long struggle for independence from Rome they were defeated and substantial Roman colonies were placed on their soil. Only two inscriptions believed to be in the Aequian language
Aequian language
Aequian is an extinct language presumed spoken by the people the Romans termed Aequi and Aequicoli living in the Alban hills of northeast Latium and the central Apennines east of them during the early and middle Roman Republic; that is, approximately from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, when they...

 remain. No more can be deduced than that the language was Italic
Italic languages
The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin.In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed...

. Otherwise the inscriptions from the region are those of the Latin-speaking colonists in Latin. The colonial exonym documented in these inscriptions is Aequi and also Aequicoli ("colonists of Aequium"). The manuscript variants of the classical authors present Equic-, Aequic-, Aequac-. If the form without the -coli is taken as an original, it may well also be the endonym, but to date further evidence is lacking.

Historical geography

The historians made many entries concerning the wars between the Aequi and Rome; the geographers scarcely mention them. Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 and Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

 both make the same brief statement: the towns of the Aequiculi were Cliternia
Petrella Salto
Petrella Salto is a comune in the Province of Rieti in the Italian region Latium, located about 60 km northeast of Rome and about 20 km southeast of Rieti.-External links:*...

 or Cliternum and Carsoli
Carsoli
Carsoli is a town and comune in the province of L'Aquila, Abruzzo . The ancient Roman city lies 4 km southwest of the modern town.-History:...

 or Carsioli Pliny places them in Augustus' Regio IV; Ptolemy adds that they were to the east of the Sabini. By their time, the early Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, all vestige of the Italic Aequi was gone. The two cities mentioned had been Roman colonies. The forms mentioned in inscriptions from there are Carsioli and Cliternia.

They occupied the upper reaches of the valleys of the Anio, Tolenus and Himella; the last two being mountain streams running northward to join the Nera (Italy).

History

According to Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

, the Aequi were in existence when the city of Rome was founded.

They are first mentioned by Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 as being an ancient nation from whom the Romans borrowed the rites of declaring war.

Livy also mentions that the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, made peace with the Aequi.

Their chief centre is said to have been taken by the Romans about 484 BC
484 BC
Year 484 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Mamercus and Vibulanus...

 and again about ninety years later (id. xiv. 106), but they were not finally subdued till the end of the second Samnite war, when they seem to have received a limited form of franchise. They fought several battles against the Romans, among which was the battle of Mons Algidus
Battle of Mons Algidus
The Battle of Mons Algidus was fought in 458 BC between the Roman Republic and the Aequi near Algidus Mons, Latium. The Roman dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus turned a Roman defeat into an important victory.-Background:...

 (458 BC).

All we know of their subsequent political condition is that after the Social war
Social War
The Allied War was a war waged from 91 to 88 BC between the Roman Republic and several of the other cities in Italy, which prior to the war had been Roman allies for centuries.-Origins:The Early Italian campaigns saw the Roman conquest of Italy...

 the folk of Cliternia and Nersae appear united in a res publica
Res publica
Res publica is a Latin phrase, loosely meaning "public affair". It is the root of the word republic, and the word commonwealth has traditionally been used as a synonym for it; however translations vary widely according to the context...

 Aequiculorum
, which was a municipium
Municipium
Municipium , the prototype of English municipality, was the Latin term for a town or city. Etymologically the municipium was a social contract between municipes, the "duty holders," or citizens of the town. The duties, or munera, were a communal obligation assumed by the municipes in exchange for...

 of the ordinary type located in what is now the municipality of Pescorocchiano
Pescorocchiano
Pescorocchiano is a comune in the Province of Rieti in the Italian region Latium, located about 60 km northeast of Rome and about 30 km southeast of Rieti....

. The Latin colonies of Alba Fucens
Alba Fucens
Alba Fucens was an ancient Italic town occupying a lofty situation at the foot of the Monte Velino, c. 6.5 km north of Avezzano, Abruzzo, central Italy. Its remains are today in the comune of Massa d'Albe....

 (304 BC) and Carsioli (298 BC) must have spread the use of Latin (or what passed as such) all over the district; through it lay the chief (and for some time the only) route (Via Valeria) to Luceria and the south.

At the end of the Republican period the Aequi appear, under the name Aequiculi or Aequicoli, organized as a municipium, the territory of which seems to have comprised the upper part of the valley of the Salto
Salto
Salto may refer to:*Salto, a Latin word for "to leap/jump", and in gymnastics refers to a somersault* Glasflügel H-101 "Salto" -Organisations:...

, still known as Cicolano. It is probable, however, that they continued to live in their villages as before. Of these, Nersae (moderan Civitella di Nesce) was the most considerable. Remains include large polygon
Polygon
In geometry a polygon is a flat shape consisting of straight lines that are joined to form a closed chain orcircuit.A polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments...

al terrace walls.
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