page_title: Frentani
section_title: Roads
hierarchical_section_title: Frentani / Geography / Roads
caption_attribution_description: Frentani, Frentrum. Circa 250 BC. Æ 21mm (7.38 g). 8DENTDEY, head of Hermes left, wearing winged petasos 8DENTDEY, retrograde in exergue, Pegasos running left, tripod below. SNG ANS 129; BMC Italy pg. 69, 1; SNG Copenhagen 266; SNG Morcom 62; Laffaille 6. VF, glossy green and brown patina.
context_page_description: The Frentani were an Italic tribe occupying the tract on the east coast of the peninsula from the Apennines to the Adriatic, and from the frontiers of Apulia to those of the Marrucini. They were bounded on the west by the Samnites, with whom they were closely connected, and from whom they were originally descended. Hence Scylax assigns the whole of this line of coast, from the frontiers of Apulia to those of Picenum, to the Samnites. Their exact limits are less clearly defined, and there is considerable discrepancy in the statements of ancient geographers: Larinum, with its territory, being by some writers termed a city of the Frentani, while the more general opinion included it in Apulia, and thus made the river Tifernus the limit of the two countries. The northern boundary of the Frentani is equally uncertain; both Strabo and Ptolemy concur in fixing it at the river Sagrus, while Pliny extends their limits as far as the Aternus, and, according to Mela, they possessed the mouths both of that river and the Matrinus.
context_section_description: There is considerable obscurity in regard to the Roman roads through the territory of the Frentani. The name of the Via Trajana Frentana rests only on the authority of a dubious inscription; nor is there any better evidence for the fact that the construction of the high road through this district was really owing to that emperor. But it is certain that an ancient road traversed the territory of the Frentani, in its whole length from Aternum to Larinum, keeping for the most part near the sea-coast, but diverging for the purpose of visiting Anxanum. The stations along it are thus given in the Itinerary of Antoninus:
  Ostia Aterni to Angulum (Angulus), x. M.P.
  Angulus to Ortona, xi. M.P.
  Ortona to Anxano, xiii. M.P.
  Anxano to Histonios, xxv. M.P.
  Histonios to Uscosio, xv. M.P.
  Uscosio to Arenio (Larinum ?), xiv. M.P.
  Of these, Angulus or Angulum is certainly misplaced, possibly present day Città Sant'Angelo, and should have been inserted between Hadria (modern Atri) and the Aternus. The distance from the mouths of the Aternus at Pescara to Ortona is considerably understated, and that from Ortona to Anxanum as much overrated; but still the line of the road may be tolerably well made out, and an ancient Roman bridge, over the Sangro between Lanciano and Vasto, supplies a fixed point in confirmation.
  The road given in the Tabula, on the contrary, strikes inland, from the mouth of the Aternus to Teate (modern Chieti), and thence to Ortona, and again between Anxanum and Histonium makes a bend inland by Annum and Pallanum. The distances given are very confused, and in many instances probably corrupt. They stand thus:
  Ostia Aterni to Teano Marrucino, xvi. M.P.
  Teano Marrucino to Ortona, xi. M.P.
  Ortona to Anxana, iii. M.P.
  Anxana to Annum, iiii. M.P.
  Annum to Pallanum, xii. M.P.
  Pallanum to Istonium, xxiii., M.P.
  Istonium to Larinum, "corrupt"
caption: Coin from Frentrum with a head of Mercury and Pegasus.
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