CHAPTER 34
Lucanians and Southern Italy
1John W. Wonder
In the Greek and Roman literary tradition, ancient authors cite a southern Italian people
called the “Lucanians.” Ancient writers usually present these people as a distinct group,
distinguished from other Italian people. While Lucanians are often associated with events
dating from the middle of the fourth centuryBCto the end of the third centuryBC,
most authors who refer to the Lucanians wrote in the late republic or early empire.
Their discussions are usually brief or passing comments in a story not primarily con-
cerned with these people. Lucanians have not left their own written records, and their
name is not found among inscriptions of southern Italy. Certain questions present them-
selves: How and why were these people defined as an ethnic group? By whom? Did the
Lucanians identify themselves as a collective in the same way as Greek and Roman writ-
ers? What traits were used to determine the ethnic group? What was the derivation of
their name?
As a number of chapters in this volume have noted, an ethnic group may be conceptu-
alized and identified either by people outside the group in question or by those within
the ethnic group itself. Ancient Greek and Roman writers of the late republic and early
empire employed the term “Lucanians” as an ethnic construct for a large population
in southern Italy generally perceived to have had similar origins, dialect, territory, and
dress. The term, however, may not have had the same meaning among fourth-century
sources, and it is highly likely that the name “Lucanians” employed by Greek writers was
originally a local appellation for an Italic people in the area of Thurii and Croton. The
ancient inhabitants of Lucania appear to have self-identified primarily with local pop-
ulation groups. During the Punic Wars and later, however, some of these inhabitants
did use the term “Lucanians” as a self-attribution, identifying themselves with a wider
collective identity.
A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, First Edition. Edited by Jeremy McInerney.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.