War and warriors in the Archaic Aterno Valley (Central-Italy).

When Roman writers wrote about Pre-Roman Central-Italy, they consigned to History a picture made of epic wars and brave warriors. Indeed, the Archaic period is the golden age of the Pre-Roman aristocracy and warrior ideology played a crucial role in building it. In this paper, I will focus on the specific case of the Vestini Cismontani, a Sabine tribe of modern Abruzzo, in order to define the role of war and its display within communities of the same ethne. The high number of weapons and warriors, along with the widespread fortification of the territory, even in areas supposed to be within the borders, are indicators of a society where fighting and rivalries are part of the wider diplomatic balance of the region. In this paper, I will explore settlement patterns and archaeological evidence in order to define the role of war and inter-communal aggression in a mountainous and harsh landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]