The Oenotrians or Enotrians were an ancient Italic people who inhabited a territory in Southern Italy from Paestum to southern Calabria. By the sixth century BC, the Oenotrians had been absorbed into other Italic tribes.

History

It is thought that the Oenotrians represent the southern branch of a very old ethno-linguistic group, different from the proto-Latin one, which occupied the Tyrrhenian Sea area from Liguria to Sicily (Ligurian/Sicanian layer). They are generally depicted as belonging to the Pelasgians. According to Antoninus Liberalis and Hellanicus, their arrival triggered the migration of the Elymians to Sicily around 1260 BC. Ancient authors from the 1st c. BC state that Oenotria was named after Oenotrus, the youngest of the fifty sons of Lycaon who migrated there from Arcadia in Peloponnese, Greece. However, inscriptions from the 6th or the 5th century BC in the ancient Oenotrian settlement of Tortora reveal that they spoke an Italic language. Virgil (70-21 BC) mentions them as the settlers whose descendants now call their land Italy. Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) mentions that "...opposite Velia are Pontia and Isacia, both known under the name of Oenotrides, a proof that Italy was formerly possessed by the Oenotrians". The settlement of the Greeks with the first stable colonies such as Metapontum pushed the Oenotrians inland and started a war of attrition with the Greek colonies, which they plundered more than once. From the 5th century BC the Oenotrians disappeared under the pressure of the Lucanians.

Etymology

A likely derivation of the ethnonym Oenotrian is the Greek oînos, as the Oenotrians inhabited a territory rich in vineyards, with Oenotria or Enotria being extended to refer to the entirety of Southern Italy. Hesychius mentions the word oínōtron (οἴνωτρον), a kind of a vine stake.

Language

In 1991, inscriptions dating from the 6th or the 5th century BC were discovered in the ancient Oenotrian settlement of Tortora, Calabria, and revealed that the Oenotrians spoke an Italic language.