ThePeucetians were anIapygian tribe which inhabited western and centralApulia inclassical antiquity.[1]
Two other Iapygian tribes, theDaunians and theMessapians, inhabited northern and southern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke theMessapian language, but had developed separatearchaeological cultures by the seventh century BC; however, in Peucetian territoryancient Greek andOscan language were spoken as well, as the legends of the currencies fromRubi andAzetium were trilingual.[2] Peucetians lived in the eponymous regionPeucetia, which was bordered by theOfanto river and theMurge in the north, theBradano river in the west and the territories of theGreekcolony ofTaras and the Messapians in the south.[3] This region is mostly coincident with theMetropolitan City of Bari and parts of the provinces ofTaranto andBarletta-Andria-Trani today.
TheEncyclopédie under "Peuceti", distinguishes them from another ancient people, thePeucetioe who were living inLiburnia at the head of theAdriatic, with a reference toCallimachus, as quoted inPliny (H.N. III.21) placing their country in Pliny's day as part ofIllyria.[4]
Modern ethnography regard the term 'Poedicli' as a synonym of 'Peucetii'.[5] InAncient Greek they were known asΠευκέτιοι.[6]
They had three important towns:Canosa,Silvium andBitonto; the present capital ofApulia,Bari, had not much importance.
With increasingHellenization theireponymous ancestor, given the namePeucetis, was said byDionysius of Halicarnassus[7] to have been the son of theArcadianLycaon and brother ofOenotrus. Lycaon having divided Arcadia among his twenty-two sons, Peucetios was inspired to seek better fortune abroad. Thisetiological myth is considered by modern writers to suggest strongly that, as far as the Greeks were concerned, the Peucetii were culturally part, though an unimportant part, ofMagna Graecia.
Strabo places them to the north of theCalabri.[8] Strabo adds (VI.8) "... the terms Peucetii and Daunii are not at all used by the native inhabitants except in the early times." In the time of Strabo the territory occupied by the former Peuceti lay on the mule-track that was the only connection betweenBrindisi andBenevento.[9] Pre-Roman ceramic evidence justifies Strabo's classification of Daunii, Peucetii and Messapii, who were all speakers of theMessapian language. There were twelve tribal proto-statelets among the Peucetii, one of which is represented by modernAltamura.
A genetic analysis of maternal haplogroups published in 2018 examined DNA extracted from 15 Iron Age (7th – 4th c. BCE) and 30 Roman period (1st – 4th c. CE) individuals buried at Iron Age Botromagno and Roman period Vagnari, now part ofGravina in Puglia. The study supports previous hypotheses that the ancestors of the Iron Age Iapygians may have originated in the eastern Balkan region, or derive shared ancestry with a common source population from eastern Europe, and suggests that as the Romans occupied the region, they populated their Imperial properties with people from central Italy (possibly from the region ofLatium, and the surrounding environs of Rome).[10]
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