524 John W. Wonder
term that the Athenians used for these indigenous south Italian people would certainly
have derived from members of their former colony. One should note that the massacre of
10,000 soldiers from the powerful city of Thurii by an Italic army would have had a dra-
matic and lasting effect on the Italiotes. It was probably the very battle described in the
preceding text that provided such a hostile reputation for these Italic people among the
Athenians. In fact, when Isocrates wroteDe Pace, these Lucanians were in conflict with
Dionysius II (see Diod. 16.5.1–2). “Lucanians” was probably the name used by the peo-
ple of Thurii (and no doubt other Greeks in the areas such as those from Croton) for the
local indigenous people who threatened them. If conflicts between Thurii and these peo-
ple occurred as early as the 440s, there may have been hostile relationships for some time.
As noted earlier, Aristoxenus (end of the fourth century) knew Lucanians as an Italic
people from this same area (Croton). He did not apply it to the occupiers of Poseidonia.
Perhaps Greeks in southern Italy used the term originally for the indigenous population
in the vicinity of Thurii and Croton. Later, it was gradually applied to a larger indigenous
population. While the date of Pseudo-Scylax is uncertain, he may have been an early writer
who first applied the term to a wider group. There are certainly examples of local names
later applied to a larger population. The term “Hellenes,” a name originally derived from
a small tribe in south Thessaly, and the term “Greeks,” from a people in western Greece,
are two such examples. We may never know where or how the people of Thurii obtained
the name “Lucanians.” It was possibly a self-appellation acquired from the local Italic
people of their area.
Conclusion
In their narratives, Greek and Roman writers of the late republic and early empire present
the Lucanians as a large ethnic construct in southern Italy. These authors associated
a common territory and common origins with these people, and probably also iden-
tified Lucanians by their language, clothing, and war equipment. The term “Lucani-
an” is seen for the first time in the works of a few fourth-century authors, and it has
been proposed that the term, among the Greeks, originated in the area of Thurii, Cro-
ton, and other nearby cities as a name for the Italic people in the area. This proposal
would explain Aristoxenus’ comment concerning Poseidonia, as he was aware of the
term “Lucanian” but did not apply it to people farther north. Certain Greeks, however,
such as Pseudo-Scylax, began to conceptualize the term in a more comprehensive way
to categorize the populations of southern Italy. By the late republic and early empire,
writers identified the Lucanians as a large ethnic collective inhabiting a sizable area in
southern Italy.
While it is difficult to know how the inhabitants of ancient Lucania defined themselves,
association with a local population seems to have been the primary form of identification.
Regional communities known astoutaeprobably represent these local population groups.
Nevertheless, coins dated to the Punic War indicate that some Italic people in Lucania
used the ethnic “Lucanian” at this time as a self-appellation and identified themselves
with a larger collective. Conflicts waged in Lucania by Greeks and Romans from the end
of the fourth to the first centuryBCcertainly fostered a sense of cooperation and identifi-
cation among some indigenous peoples, and Roman and Carthaginian leaders probably