Ancient civilizations-2

The populations of the Picenum

In historic times, expansion of the eastern Italic peoples placed them firmly along the Adriatic coastal tract corresponding to what is now the Marches region. Epigraphic and archaeological data give evidence also of the presence in the Picenum (an ancient region between the Apennines and the Adriatic) of the trans-Adriatic Liburni and the pre-Indo-European Asili. It is possible that elements were established here that had come by sea from Illyria (the Gubbio tablets mention the Iapuzkus, whose name recalls that of the Illyrian Iapodes and of the Apulian Iapyges). Inscriptions in the southern Piceno, however, seem to exhibit a close kinship with the Umbro-Sabellic dialects.

A material civilization flowered between the 8th and 5th centuries in the northern Abruzzo and in the Marches. This civilization is represented by the rich funerary equipment of burial tombs, whose type and decoration present affinities with the iron culture of Tyrrhenian and northern Italy and with that of the Balkans and which show Greek influence. Cremation tombs of Villanovan type have been found at Fermo. Also noteworthy is the presence of stone funerary sculpture. North of Ancona is a cultural variant, particularly in the necropolis of Novilara near Pesaro, where inscriptions are in a dialect other than that of the southern Picenum and difficult to classify.

It may be held that the middle-Adriatic iron cultures expressed an early Archaic mixture of eastern Italic and trans-Adriatic peoples, influenced by the Etruscans and the Greeks. Contributing to their decline were the Gauls and Syracusans, who established themselves in this area in the 4th century bce. In the 3rd century, the Picenum was already totally conquered by the Romans.