The Hirpini (Latin: ) were an ancient Samnite tribe of Southern Italy. While generally regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation. They inhabited the southern portion of Samnium, in the more extensive sense of that name, roughly the area now known as Irpinia from their name—a mountainous region bordering on Basilicata towards the south, on Apulia to the east, and on Campania towards the west. No marked natural boundary separated them from these neighboring nations, but they occupied the lofty masses and groups of the central Apennines, while the plains on each side, and the lower ranges that bounded them, belonged to their more fortunate neighbors. The mountain basin formed by the three tributaries of the Vulturnus (modern Volturno)—the Tamarus (modern Tammaro), Calor (modern Calore), and Sabatus (modern Sabato), which, with their valleys, unite near Beneventum, surrounded on all sides by lofty and rugged ranges of mountains—is the center and heart of their territory. They occupied the Daunian Mountains to the north, while its more southern portion comprised the upper valley of the Aufidus (modern Ofanto) and the lofty group of mountains where that river takes its rise.
Name
Their name derives, according to ancient writers, from hirpus (the Oscan for 'wolf') and meant 'those who belong to the wolf'. In accordance with this derivation, their first ancestors were supposedly guided to their new settlements by a wolf. This tradition implies that the Hirpini were regarded as having migrated, like the other Sabellian peoples in the south of Italy, from the north, but when this migration occurred is unknown. From their position in the vastnesses of the central Apennines, they were probably there long before they first appear in history.
Affiliations and history
The early history of the Hirpini cannot be separated from that of the Samnites in general. Their name does not once occur in history during the long protracted struggle between the Romans and the Samnite confederacy (the Samnite Wars), though their territory was often the theatre of the war, and several of their cities, especially Maloenton (Roman Maleventum, modern Benevento), are repeatedly mentioned as bearing an important part in the military operations of both powers. Hence, the Hirpini at this time must have formed an integral part of the Samnite league, and were included by the Roman annalists (whose language on such points Livy follows with scrupulous fidelity) under the general name of Samnites, without distinguishing between the several tribes of that people. For the same reason we can't fix the exact period when the Romans subjugated them, but it must have been before 268 BC, when the Romans established their colony at Beneventum, a position that likely was the military key to the possession of their country.
In the Second Punic War, the Hirpini appear as an independent people, acting apart from the rest of the Samnites. Livy expressly uses the name of Samnium in contradistinction to the land of the Hirpini. The latter people was one of those that declared in favour of Hannibal immediately after the battle of Cannae, 216 BC; but the Roman colony of Beneventum never fell into the hands of the Carthaginian general. As early as the following year, three of the smaller towns of the Hirpini were recovered by the Roman praetor M. Valerius. In 214 BC, their territory was the scene of the operations of Hanno against Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and again in 212 BC of those of the same Carthaginian general with a view to the relief of Capua. It was not until 209 BC, when Hannibal lost all footing in the center of Italy, that the Hirpini submitted to Rome, and gained favourable terms by betraying the Carthaginian garrisons in their towns.