BRUTTII, an ancient tribe of lower Italy. This tribe, called Bruttii and Brittii in Latin inscriptions, and Brettioi on Greek coins and by Greek authors, occupied the southwestern peninsula of Italy in historical times, the ager Bruttius (wrongly called Bruttium) corresponding almost exactly to the modern Calabria. It was separated from Lucania on the north by a line drawn from the mouth of the river Laus on the west to a point a little south of the river Crathis on the east. To part or the whole of this peninsula the name Italia was first applied. In alliance with the Lucanians the Bruttii made war on the Greek colonies of the coast and seized on Vibo in 356 B.C., and held it until it became a Latin colony at the end of the same century. The Bruttii were at the height of their power during the 3rd century B.C. Their chief towns were Consentia (Cosenza), Petelia (near Strongoli), and Clampetia (Amantea). To this period (about the time of the Roman war against Pyrrhus) belongs the series of their coins, and they appear to have retained the right of coinage even of ter their final subjugation by the Romans. Objects of Greek origin are found in their tombs and they spoke the Greek language as well as their own (bilingues in Ennius).
The Bruttii first came into collision with the Romans during the war with Pyrrhus, to whom they . sent auxiliaries; after his defeat they submitted and were deprived of half their territory in the Sila forest, which was declared state property. In the war with Hannibal they were among the first to declare in his favour after the battle of Cannae, and it was in their country that Hanni bal held his ground during the last stage of the war (at Castrum Hannibalis on the gulf of Scylacium). They spoke Oscan as well as Greek, and two or three Oscan inscriptions in Greek alphabet still testify to the language spoken in the town in the 3rd cen tury B.C. The Bruttians, though at this date speaking the same language (Oscan) as the Samnite tribe of the Lucani, were not actually akin to them. The name Bruttii was used by the Lucanians to mean "runaway slaves," but it is considerably more likely that this signification was attached to the tribal name of the Bruttii from the historical fact that they had been conquered and expelled by the Samnite invaders. The evidence of tradition (especially Aristotle, Pol. 4 [7] shows that the customs of the Bruttii had a certain affinity with those of the pre-Hellenic in habitants of Greece, and it has been argued that a tradition made it probable that they were called IIEAao yoe. On this evidence they were part of what is now generally called the Mediterranean race. Many Indo-European elements appear in their place-names (e.g., Sila—Latin silva, Greek An; Temesa, cf. Gr. TEuevo , or San skrit Lamas, darkness, shadow), and none that suggest a non-Indo European origin. They may have been akin to the Siceli.
History.—The Bruttii entirely lost their separate existence at the end of the Hannibalic war; in 194 B.C. colonies of Roman citizens were founded at Tempsa and Croton, and a colony with Latin rights at Hipponium, called Vibo Valentia. In 132 B.C. the consul P. Popillius built the great road from Capua through Vibo and Consentia to Rhegium. Spartacus held out a long time in the Sila (71 B.C.) . Vibo was the naval base of Octavian in the con flict with Sextus Pompeius (42-36 B.C.).
The most important products of the district were the wood from the forests of the Sila and the pitch produced from it. The coast plains were in parts very fertile, especially the lower valley of the Crathis. Under the empire the Sila was state domain, and most of the rest in the hands of large proprietors. Augustus joined it with Lucania to form the third region of Italy. Diocletian placed Lucania and Brittii (as the name was then spel0 under a correc tor, whose residence was at Rhegium. From the 6th century A.D., after the fall of the Ostrogothic power and the establishment of that of Byzantium, the name Calabria was applied to the whole of the south Italian possessions of the Eastern empire, and the name of the Brittii entirely disappeared. After the eastern penin sula (the ancient Calabria) had been taken by the Lombards, about A.D. 668, the western retained the name and still keeps it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-See Strabo vi., p. 253-265 ; Dion. Halic. xx. 1, 4, 15; Bibliography.-See Strabo vi., p. 253-265 ; Dion. Halic. xx. 1, 4, 15; Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii. 71-74 ; Justin xii. 2, xxiii. I ; C. Hiilsen in Pauly Wissowa's Realencyklopadie, iii. pt. i. (1897) ; R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects (1897), for Bruttian inscriptions and local and personal names; J. E. Sandys, Companion to Latin Studies (1921), with useful bibliography.