Daunii (Iapygian tribe)
Nation | Defunct
1100 BCE to 190 BCE
Towards the late Bronze Age (11th-10th centuries BCE), Illyrian populations from the eastern Adriatic arrived in Apulia probably using the narrow stretch of water between Albania and Italy.
The Illyrians in Italy create the Iapygian civilization, which consists of three tribes: Peucetii, Messapii and the Dauni.It differentiates from the two other regions inhabited by the Iapyges by its relative distance from the Greek colonies, from which it has less connections.
Having been also less influenced by the Campanian civilization, it hasthus a more peculiar culture, featuring in particular the Daunian steles, a series of funerary monuments sculpted in the 7th-6th centuries BCE in the plain south of Siponto, and now housed in the National Museum of that city.
Particularly striking is Daunian pottery (as yet little studied) which begins with geometric patterning but which eventually includes crude human, bird and plant figures.The main Daunian centers are Teanum Apulum (within the modern San Paolo di Civitate), Uria, Casone, Lucera, Merinum (Vieste), Monte Saraceno (near Mattinata), Siponto, Coppa Navigata, Cupola, Salapia (near Cerignola and Manfredonia), Arpi (near Foggia), Aecae (near Troia), Vibinum (Bovino), Castelluccio dei Sauri, Herdonia (Ordona), Ausculum (Ascoli Satriano), Ripalta (near Cerignola), Canosa di Puglia, Melfi, Lavello and Venosa.
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The origins of this non-Indo-European people, which first settles on the Tyrrhenian coast of central Italy and later expands to northern Italy (Emilia in particular) and Campania, are uncertain.
Other peoples living in northern Italy include the Ligurians (an Indo-European people who live in what is now Liguria, southern Piedmont and the southern French coast), the Lepontii, Insubres, Orobii and other Celtic tribes in Piedmont and Lombardy, the Veneti of north-eastern Italy.
In the peninsula, alongside the Etruscans, live numerous tribes, mostly of Indo-European origin: the Umbri in Umbria and northern Abruzzo, the Latins, who will create the Roman civilization, Sabellians, Falisci, Volsci and Aequi in the Latium; Piceni in the Marche and north-east Abruzzo; Samnites in southern Abruzzo, Molise and Campania; Daunians, Messapii and Peucetii (forming the Apulian or Iapygian confederation) in Apulia; Lucani and Bruttii in the southern tips of the peninsula.
In Sicily live the Sicels, Elymians and Sicani while Sardinia is still inhabited by the Nuragic peoples.
Later, other peoples will settle in the Italian territory, cohabiting with the previous inhabitants: new tribes of Celts in the north (Senones, Boii, Lingones etc.), the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the south and in part of Sicily and Sardinia.
Cleonymus, expelled from southern Italy, sails to the north across the Adriatic Sea to land at the coast of the Veneti.
The Veneti have recurring fights with the Celtic peoples who occupy most of Northern Italy, but also have peaceful relations with the Cenomani Celts who have settled in the region of Brescia and Verona; they will eventually absorb them.
From the mouth of the Meduacus (now Brenta River) he sails upstream to the country of Patavium (now Padua) and raids the nearby villages, but the natives defeat him and he suffers great losses —allegedly four fifths of his ships are destroyed—and Cleonymus has to leave the territory of Patavium.
It is unknown how his campaign ended.