Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/910

 890 SAMMONIUM. vol. ii. p. 415), and Ross at the village oi PlnkUa, on the southern side of 5It. Tricaranon, across which is the shortest pass from the Phliasia into the Arrive plain. {Pehponnes, p. 27.) SAMMO'NIUM. [Samoxium.] SA'JIXIUM (j) 2aur?Tis, Pol., Strab.: Eth. Sam- Nis, pi. Samnites, Sauj/rrai, Pol., Strab., &c. ; 2a^- vlrai.^ Ptol.), one of the principal resions or districts of Central Italy. The name was sometimes used in a more extensive, sometimes in a more restricted, sense, the Samnites being a numerous and powerful people, who consisted of several distinct tribes, while they had founded other tnbes in their imme- diate neighbourhood, who were sometimes included under the same appellation, though they did not properly form a part of the nation. But Samnium proper, according to the more usual sense of the name (exclusive of the Frentani, but including the Hirpini), was a wholly inland district, bounded on the N. by the Marsi, Peligni, and Frentani, on the E. by Apulia, on the S. by Lucania, and on the SW. and W. by Campania and Latium. I. General Desciuption. The territory thus limited was almost wholly mountainous, being filled up with the great moun- tain masses and ramifications of the Apennines, ■which in this part of their course have lost even more than elsewhere the character of a regular chain or range, and consist of an irregular and broken mass, the configuration of which it is not very easy to understand. But as the wliole topography of Samnium depends upon the formation and arrange- ment of these mountain groups, it will be necessary to examine them somewhat in detail. 1. In the northern part of the district, adjoining the Marsi and Peligni, was a broken and irregular mass of mountains, containing the sources of the Sagras (^Sangro), and extending on both sides of the valley of that river, as for as the frontiers of the Frentani. This was the land of the Caracexi, the most northerly of the Samnite tribes, wliose chief city was Aufidena, in the valley of the Sagrus, about .5 miles above Castel di Sangro, now the chief town of the surrounding district. 2. The valley of the Sagrus was separated by a mountain pass of considerable elevation from the val- ley of the Vulturnus, a river which is commonly con- sidered as belonging to Campania; but its sources, as well as the upper part of its course, and the valleys of all its earliest tributaries, were comprised in Sam- nium. Aesernia, situated on one of these tributaries, was the principal town in this part of the coun- try; while Venafrum, about 15 miles lower down the valley, was already reckoned to belong to Cam- pania. This portion of Samnium was one of the richest and most fertile, and least mountainous of the whole country. Fi-om its proximity to Latium and Campania, the valley of the Vulturnus was one of the quarters which was most accessible to the Roman arms, and sei^ved as one of the highroads into the enemy's country. 3. From Aesernia a pass, which was probably used from very early times, and was traversed by a road in the days of the Roman Empire, led to Bovianum in the valley of the Tifernus. This fity was situated in the very heart of the Sam- nite country, surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains. Of these the most important is that on the SW., the Monte Matese, at the present day one of the most celebrated of the Apennines, SAJINIUM. but for which no ancient name has been preserved. The name of Mons Tifernus may indeed have been applied to the whole group; but it is more probable tliat it was confined, as that of Bfonte Biferno is at the present day, to one of the oifbhoots or ndnor summits of the Matese, in which the actual sources of the Tifernus were situated. The name of Matese is given to an extensive group or mass of mountains filling up the whole space between Bojano (Bovi- anum) and the valley of the Vulturnus, so that it sends down its ramifications and underfalls quite to the valley of that river, whence they sweep round by the valley of the Calor, and thence by Morcone and Sepino to the sources of the Tamarus. Its highest summit, the Monte Miletto, SW. of Bo- jano, rises to a heiglit of 6744 feet. This rugged group of mountains, clothed with extensive forests, and retaining the snow on its summits for a large part of the year, must always have been inac- cessible to civilisation, and offered a complete bar- rier to the arms of an invader. There could never have been any road or frequented pass between that which followed the valley of the Vulturnus and that which skirts the eastern baseof the J/atese, from the valley of the Calore to that of the Tamaro. This last is the line followed by the modern road from Naples to Campohasso. 4. N. of Bojano the mountains are less ele- vated, and liave apparently no conspicuous (or at least no celebrated) summits; but the wliole tract, from Bojano to the frontier of the Frentani, is filled up with a mass of rugged mountains, extending from Agnone and the valley of the Sangro to the neigh- bourhood of Campohasso. This mountainous tract is traversed by the deep and narrow valleys of the Trigno (Trinius) and Biferno (Tifernus), whicii carry off the waters of the central chain, but without affording any convenient means of communication. The mountain tracts extending on all sides of Bovi- anum constituted the country of the Pentki, the most powerful of all the Samnite tribes. 5. S. of the Matese, and separated from it by the valley of the Calor (^Cahre), is the group of the Mons Tabuknus, still called Monte Ta- hurno, somewhat resembling the Matese in cha- racter, but of inferior elevation as well as extent. It formed, together with the adjoining valleys, the land of the Caudesi, apparently one of the smallest of the Samnite tribes, and the celebrated pass of the Caadine Forks was situated at its foot. Closely connected with Mount Taburnus, and in a manner dependent on it, though separated from it by the narrow valley of the Isclero, is a long ridge which extends from Arpaja to near Capua. It is of very inferior elevation, but rises boldly and steeply from the plain of Campania, of which it seems to form the natural boundary. The extremity of this ridge nearest to Capua is the JIoNS Tifata, so celebrated in the campaigns of Hannibal, from which he so long looked down upon the plains of Campania. 6. At the eastern foot of 5Ions Taburnus was situated Beneventum, the chief town of the Hiupini, and which, from its peculiar position, was in a man- ner the key of the whole district inhabited by that people. It stood in a plain or broad valley formed by the junction of the Calor with its tributaries the Sabatus and Tamarus, so that considerable valleys opened up from it in all directions into the mountains. The Calor itself is not only the most considerable of the tributaries of the Vulturnus, but at the point of its junction with that river, about 20 miles below