AURUNCI

ancient tribe of Campania, in Italy. They were exterminated by the Romans in 295 BC as the culmination of 50 years of Roman military campaigns against them. The Aurunci occupied a strip of coast situated between the Volturnus and Liris (Volturno and Liri) rivers in the modern province of Caserta, with their capital at Suessa (modern Sessa Aurunca). No written record of their language survives, but the frequency of the use of the -co suffix in that part of the coast suggests that the Aurunci spoke the same Italic dialect as their northern neighbours, the Volsci. Ausones, the Greek form of the name Aurunci, came to denote the inhabitants of the whole of Latium and Campania.