Picentes

Attributes: | +75% Siege Damage, +20% Recruitment Rate

The **Picentes** are a medium-sized Sabellic faction, occupying a coastal territory in Picenum.

Its starting neighbours are the Umbri and Sabines, with the North Etruscans and Marsi being nearby as well.

### In-game Description

"The Picentes are a group of people living along the Adriatic coast of Italy. They have been described by Strabo as migrating from Sabine territory to the coast following a divine vision telling them to, with a woodpecker leading the way; woodpeckers held special prominence in the Picene religion. The Picentes are held to have been an ethnically diverse bunch. In the south, they spoke a language commonly accepted to fall in the same family as their neighbours, but inscriptions showing a completely different language, perhaps completely unrelated to the vast majority of languages found in Europe, have been found in northern Picenum."

### Starting Cities

* **Pisaurum**: Pisaurum (modern Pesaro) is a colony established by the Romans very near the known Picene settlements in modern Novilara, where four steles that give us nearly our entire knowledge of the North Picene language were found.
* **Misa**: The river Misa would be settled by the Senone Gauls in the 4th century BCE after crossing the Alps and Migrating into Italy. Soon after setting up their capital in what would be renamed Senigallia and taking control of the nearby region, the Senones would march into Etruria and Latium, sacking Rome. Centuries later Rome would establish the colony of Sena Gallica on this site.
* **Auximum**: Founded by Greek colonists from the nearby port town of Ancona, Auximum (modern Osimo) would become a heavily walled fortress-city in the hills of Picenum by the 2nd century BCE.
* **Tolentinum**: Tolentinum is a city of the Picentes with a long history. It is here that archaeologists fround the Ciottolo di Tolentino, a Paleolithic-era engraved stone depicting a woman with the head of a snouted animal.
* **Firmum Picenum**: Located in a defensive position in the hills of Picenum, the site of Firmum Picenum is known to have been inhabited since the early Iron Age. The Romans would later establish a colony here to establish it as a local headquarters; the name "Firmum Picenum" refers to this colony, and its name prior to Roman rule is unknown.

### Strategy

The Umbri will likely be the first faction you encounter, as your starting city is closest to their territory. It may be necessary to already deal with them through diplomacy or warfare while still in the process of uniting your starting cities.

Your other immediate neighbour, the Sabines, are located on the opposite side of your starting territory from your starting city and will probably be of a less immediate concern at the start of the game.

The Sabines, Marsi and North Etruscans all benefit from faction-specific combat bonuses, and the North Etruscans have access to the Etruscan roster to boot. As such, the Umbri may be the best target for early expansion, Though they do have a large amount of cities to draw recruits from.

### Trivia & History

* As mentioned in the in-game tooltip, Picenum was in reality inhabited by two distinct groups of people, with the southern Picentes being a Sabellic people unlike the northern Picentes of whom not enough is known to classify them specifically. These groups were nonetheless merged into a single faction in-game, presumably to simplify the faction roster and because the northern Picentes would have been very hard to depict as an independent faction due to a lack of information.
* Historically, the area of the northern Picentes was settled and assimilated by invading Senone Gauls in the 390s BC. This invasion can be recreated through the Invasion Sandbox of the Eagle King DLC. The Senones may also spawn in this area through an event in the Unification Sandbox of the base game, but if the player owns territory in this area then they may spawn at a different location in northern Italy instead.
* Historically, Greeks from Syrakousai established a colony in Picenum at Ancona in the 380s BC, just south of where the Senones had recently settled.
* Rome historically first encountered the Picentes in the 290s BC during the 3rd Samnite War, when the Picentes refused to ally with the Samnites and earned Roman gratitude in the process. The Romans annexed the formerly North Picene area in the 280s BC after defeating the Senones who now inhabited the area. The Picentes themselves weren't conquered until a little bit later in the early 260s BC, after a failed rebellion against Roman expansion. The Romans resettled many of the Picentes in the border area of Campania and Lucania where they could be better kept in check, near the in-game cities of Paistos and Irna.
* The faction's icon depicts an arm holding a palm branch, with the exact design coming from ancient coins found at the Greek colony of Ancona. To the ancient Greeks and Romans, the palm branch was a symbol associated with victory.