Ausones (Italic tribe)
Nation | Defunct
1800 BCE to 190 BCE
The Ausones are an ancient Italic tribe settled in the southern part of Italy.
Often confused with the Aurunci, they share with them only a probably common origin.
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Both originate in the southeastern part of the island.
In these cultures, in particular in the Castelluccio phase, there are obvious influences from the Aegean Sea, where the Helladic civilization is flourishing.
The Bell Beaker culture, belonging to a western (Iberian-Sardinian) type, is known from sites on the northwestern and southwestern coasts of Sicily, previously occupied by the Conca d'Oro culture (late copper age in the Palermo region), while in the late Bronze Age there are signs in northeastern Sicily of cultural osmosis with the people of the peninsula that led to the appearance of Proto-Villanovan culture at Milazzo, perhaps linked to the arrival of Sicels.
The nearby Aeolian Islands host the flourishing of the Capo Graziano (on Filicudi) and Milazzo cultures in the Bronze Age, and subsequently that of occupation by Ausones (divided into two phases, I and II).
Villages on the Aeolian islands flourish on Capo Graziano (Filicudi), Castello (Lipari), Serro dei Cianfi (Salina), Capo Milazzese (Panarea), and Portella (Salina).
All these settlements are destroyed by new Italic invasions around 1250 BCE.
The Aeolian Islands are occupied from 1250 by the Ausonians, legendarily led by Liparus.
According to the Odyssey by Homer, Liparus was succeeded by Aeolus, whose house gave hospitality to Odysseus.
The Siculi or Sicels (from which the island of Sicily gets its name) are the latest of the three indigenous peoples to arrive on this land.
They are related to other Italic peoples of southern Italy, such as the Italoi of Calabria, the Oenotrians, Chones, and Leuterni (or Leutarni), the Opicans, and the Ausones.
Thought to originally have been Ligures from Liguria, the Sicels arrive from mainland Italy in the twelfth century BCE, forcing the Sicanians to move back across Sicily, settling in the middle of the island.
Other minor italic groups who settle in Sicily are the Ausones (Aeolian Islands, Milazzo), an Italic tribe, and the Morgetes (Morgantina), an Oenotrian tribe.
Many studies of genetic records show that inhabitants of various parts of the Mediterranean Basin mixed with the oldest inhabitants of Sicily; among these are Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Iberians.
Archaeological excavation has shown that the Sicels had received some Mycenaean influence.
The Sicels introduce the use of iron into Bronze Age Sicily and bring the domesticated horse.
The Sicel necropolis of Pantalica, near Syracuse, is the best known, but a Sicel necropolis has also been found at Noto; their elite tombs "a forno" or "oven-shaped" take the form of beehives.
Thucydides and other classical writers were aware of the traditions according to which the Sicels had once lived in Central Italy, east and even north of Rome.
Thence they were dislodged by Umbrian and Sabine tribes, and finally crossed into Sicily.
Their social organization appears to have been tribal, their economy agricultural.
According to Diodorus Siculus, after a series of conflicts with the Sicani, the river Salso was declared the boundary between their respective territories.