Volsci

The Volsci were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At that time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the south, the Hernici on the east, and stretching roughly from Norba and Cora in the north to Antium (modern Anzio and Nettuno) in the south. Rivals of Rome for several hundred years, their territories were taken over by and assimilated into the growing Republic by 300 BC.

Description by the ancient geographers

Strabo says that the Volsci formed a sovereign state near the site of Rome. It was placed in the Pomentine plain, between the Latins and the Pontine marshes, which took their name from the plain.

Language

The Volsci spoke Volscian, a Sabellic Italic language, which was closely related to Oscan and Umbrian, and more distantly to Latin.

In the Volscian territory lay the little town of Velitrae (modern Velletri), home of the ancestors of Caesar Augustus. From this town comes an inscription dating probably from early in the 3rd century BC; it is cut upon a small bronze plate (now in the Naples Museum), which must have once been fixed to some votive object, and dedicated to the god Declunus (or the goddess Decluna).