Vestini - Vestini The Vestini were an ancient Sabine tribe which occupied the eastern and northern bank of the Aternus in central Italy. The tribe entered into the Roman alliance, retaining its own independence, in 304 BC, and issuing coins of its own in the following century. A northerly section round Amiternum near the passes into Sabine country probably received the Caerite franchise soon after. In spite of this, and of the influence of Hadria, a Latin colony founded about 290 BC (Livy, Epit. xi.), the local dialect, which belongs to the north Oscan group, survived certainly to the middle of the 2nd century BC (see the inscriptions cited below) and probably until the Social War. The oldest Latin inscriptions of the district are C.I.L. ix. 3521, from.
Paeligni - first mentioned as a member of a confederacy which included the Marsi, Marrucini and Vestini, with which the Romans came into conflict in the second Samnite War, 325 BC. On the submission of the Samnites they all came into alliance with Rome in 305-302 BC (Livy ix. 45, x. 3, and Diod. xx. 101), the Paelignians having fought hard (Diod. xx. 90) against even this degree of subjection. Each of them was an independent unit, and in none was there any town or community politically separate from the tribe as a whole. Thus the Vestini issued coins in the 3rd century; each of them appears in the list of the allies in the Social War. How purely Italic in sentiment these communities of the mountain country remained appears from the choice.
Marsi - on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus. They are first mentioned as members of a confederacy with the Vestini, Paeligni and Marrucini (Livy viii. 29, cf. viii. 6, and Polybius ii. 24, 12). They joined the Samnites in 308 BC (Liv. ix. 41), and on their submission became allies of Rome in 304 BC (Liv. ix. 45). After a short-lived revolt two years later, for which they were punished by loss of territory (Liv. x. 3), they were readmitted to the Roman alliance and remained faithful down to the social war, their contingent (e.g. Liv. xliv. 46) being always regarded as the flower of the Italian forces (e.g. Horace Odes ii. 20, 18). In this war, which, owing to the prominence of the Marsian rebels is often known as the Marsic.
