Location of the Aequi (Equi) in central Italy.

The Aequi (Ancient Greek: Αἴκουοι and Αἴκοι) were an ancient people of northeast Latium and the central Appennines of Italy who appear in the early history of ancient Rome. After a long struggle for independence from Rome they were defeated and substantial Roman colonies were placed on their soil. Only two inscriptions believed to be in the Aequian language remain. No more can be deduced than that the language was Italic. Otherwise the inscriptions from the region are those of the Latin-speaking colonists in Latin. The colonial exonym documented in these inscriptions is Aequi and also Aequicoli ("colonists of Aequium"). The manuscript variants of the classical authors present Equic-, Aequic-, Aequac-.^[1] If the form without the -coli is taken as an original, it may well also be the endonym, but to date further evidence is lacking.

Historical geography[link]

The historians made many entries concerning the wars between the Aequi and Rome; the geographers scarcely mention them. Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy both make the same brief statement: the towns of the Aequiculi were Cliternia or Cliternum and Carsoli or Carsioli respectively.^[2][3] Pliny places them in Augustus' Regio IV; Ptolemy adds that they were to the east of the Sabini. By their time, the early Roman Empire, all vestige of the Italic Aequi was gone. The two cities mentioned had been Roman colonies. The forms mentioned in inscriptions from there are Carsioli and Cliternia.^[1]

They occupied the upper reaches of the valleys of the Anio, Tolenus and Himella; the last two being mountain streams running northward to join the Nera (Italy).

History[link]

According to Strabo, the Aequi were in existence when the city of Rome was founded.^[4]

They are first mentioned by Livy as being an ancient nation from whom the Romans borrowed the rites of declaring war.^[5]

Livy also mentions that the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, made peace with the Aequi.^[6]

They fought several battles against the Romans, among which was the battle of Mons Algidus (458 BC)

Their chief centre is said to have been taken by the Romans about 484 BC^[7] and again about ninety years later. ^[8]

Records of fighting between Romans and Aequi becomes much sparser in the second half of the 5th century. Likely the Aequi had gradually become a more settled people and their raiding petered out as a result.^[9]

In 390 a Gaulish warband first defeated the Roman army at the Battle of Allia and then sacked Rome. The ancient writers report that in 389 the Etruscans, the Volsci and the Aequi all raised armies in hope of exploiting this blow to Roman power. According to Livy and Plutarch, the Aequi gathered their army at Bolae. However Marcus Furius Camillus the Roman dictator, who had just inflicted a severe defeat on the Volsci, surprised the Aequan army and captured both their camp and the town.^[10] According to Diodorus Siculus the Aequi were actually besieging Bolae when they were attacked by Camillus. ^[11] According to Livy a Roman army ravaged Aequan territory again in 388, this time meeting no resistance. ^[12] Oakley (1997) considers these notices of Roman victories against Aequi in 389 and 388 to be historical, confirmed by the disappearance of the Aequi from the sources until 304. Owing to the dispute in the sources however, the precise nature of the fighting around Bolae cannot be determined. Bolae was a Latin town, but the scene of much fighting between Romans and Aequi, and changed hands several times. Both an (unreported) Aequan capture followed by Roman recapture, or a failed Aequan siege are therefore possible. ^[13]

The Aequi were not finally subdued till the end of the second Samnite war,^[14] when they seem to have received a limited form of franchise.^[15]

All we know of their subsequent political condition is that after the Social war the folk of Cliternia and Nersae appear united in a res publica Aequiculorum, which was a municipium of the ordinary type^[16] located in what is now the municipality of Pescorocchiano. The Latin colonies of Alba Fucens (304 BC) and Carsioli (298 BC) must have spread the use of Latin (or what passed as such) all over the district; through it lay the chief (and for some time the only) route (Via Valeria) to Luceria and the south.

At the end of the Republican period the Aequi appear, under the name Aequiculi or Aequicoli, organized as a municipium, the territory of which seems to have comprised the upper part of the valley of the Salto, still known as Cicolano. It is probable, however, that they continued to live in their villages as before. Of these, Nersae (moderan Civitella di Nesce) was the most considerable. Remains include large polygonal terrace walls.

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.