The Veneti (sometimes also referred to as Venetici, Ancient Veneti or Paleoveneti to distinguish them from the modern-day inhabitants of the Veneto region, called Veneti in Italian) were an Indo-European people who inhabited northeastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of Veneto, from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC and developing their own original civilization along the 1st millennium BC.Storia, vita, costumi, religiosità dei Veneti antichi at www.venetoimage.com (in Italian). Accessed on 2009-08-18.
The Veneti were initially attested in the area between Lake Garda and the Euganean Hills; later they expanded until they reached borders similar to those of the current Veneto region. According to the archaeological finds (which also agree with the written sources), the western borders of their territory ran along Lake Garda, the southern ones followed a line that starts from the Tartaro river, follows the Po and reaches Adria, along the extinct branch of the Po of Adria, while the eastern ones reached up to the Tagliamento river.
Ethnonym According to Julius Pokorný, the ethnonym Venetī (singular *Venetos) is derived from Proto Indo-European root *wen- 'to strive, to wish for, to love'. As shown by the comparative material, Germanic languages had two terms of different origin: Old High German Winida 'Wende' points to Pre-Germanic *Wenétos, while Lat.-Germ. Venedi (as attested in Tacitus) and Old English Winedas 'Wends' call for Pre-Germanic *Wenetós. The latter, according to Tacitus, who would have been familiar with Adriatic Veneti, connects the Vistula Veneti with the Slavs. Etymologically related words include Latin venus, -eris 'love, passion, grace'; Sanskrit vanas- 'lust, zest', vani- 'wish, desire'; Old Irish fine (< Proto-Celtic *venjā) 'kinship, kinfolk, alliance, tribe, family'; Old Norse vinr, Old Saxon, Old High German wini, Old Frisian, Old English wine 'friend'.Pokorny 1959: 1146–1147; Steinacher 2002: 33
Language
The ancient Veneti spoke Venetic, an extinct Indo-European language which is evidenced in approximately 300 short inscriptions dating from the 6th to 1st centuries BC. Venetic appears to share several similarities with Latin and the other Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other Indo-European languages, especially Germanic and Celtic.
Venetic should not be confused with Venetian, a Romance language presently spoken in the Veneto region.
Geography The extent of the territory occupied by the ancient Veneti before their incorporation by the Romans is uncertain. It included cities of the modern Veneto such as Este, Padua, Vicenza, Asolo, Oderzo, Montebelluna, Vittorio Veneto, Cadore, as well as other areas around the Po Delta. Venetic territory was incorporated into Cisalpine Gaul, and under Augustus was organized as the tenth region (Regio X Venetia et Histria) of Roman Italy. Regio X stretched geographically from the Arsia River in the east in Istria to the Abdua in the current Italian region of Lombardy and from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea.
History Classical sources
Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) at one point mentions the Veneti of the Adriatic (Histories V.9) and at another refers in passing to the "Eneti in Illyria" (Histories I.196) whose supposed marriage customs, he claims, mirrored those of the Babylonians.Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Selincourt. (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 120; 343. This led early scholars to seek to link the Veneti with the Illyrians. Their Illyrian origin is further strengthened by their close relationship with the inhabitants of the coastal regions of the Adriatic. Karl Pauli, a late 19th-century expert on the Venetic language, declared that the language was more closely related to that of the Illyrians than to any other language, even though knowledge of Venetic is limited to personal names, nouns, and verbs used in dedicatory formulae. There are even fewer remains of an Illyrian language which have been connected to the region and may indicate an Illyrian.Aleksandar Stipčević - Illyrians, The Illyrian Art, The Illyrian Cult Symbols However, this identification of the Adriatic Veneti as Illyrians has been discredited by many linguists.Francisco Villar, Gli Indoeuropei e le origini dell'Europa, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1997. Hans Krahe and later Anton Mayer showed that Herodotus was not referring to the Adriatic Veneti, but to an Illyrian tribe that lived in the borderlands of northern historical Macedonia. Later linguistic and paleontological studies further solidified their findings.R. Battaglia, "Dal paleolitico alla civilita atestina," in Storia di Venezia, I (Venice, 1957), 168-72; F. Sartori, "Galli transalpine transgressi in Venetiam," in Aquileia Nostra XXXI (1960), col. 6; G.B. Pellegrini and A.L. Prosdocimi, La Lingua Venetica, I (Padua, 1967), 7.
Roman historian Titus Livius (59 BC–AD 17), himself a native of the Venetic town of Patavium, wrote that after the fall of Troy, the Trojan prince Antenor became the leader of the Paphlagonians after they all had been expelled from their homeland. Together, they migrated to the northern end of the Adriatic coast where they established a settlement, and conquered and merged with indigenous people known as the Euganei.Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, Book 1, Chapter 1: "Antenor sailed into the furthest part of the Adriatic, accompanied by a number of Enetians who had been driven from Paphlagonia by a revolution and after losing their king Pylaemenes before Troy were looking for a settlement and a leader. The combined force of Enetians and Trojans defeated the Euganei, who dwelt between the sea and the Alps and occupied their land. The place where they disembarked was called Troy, and the name was extended to the surrounding district; the whole nation were called Veneti." The story connects the Veneti with the Paphlagonian Eneti, mentioned by Homer (750 BC).
Virgil (70-19 BC), in his epic the Aeneid, relates the same tradition.Virgil, Aeneid, I, 242-249. A commentary on Virgil's Aeneid by the grammarian Maurus Servius Honoratus (fl. c. AD 400) is said to imply a link between the Veneti and the Vindelici who are related to Liburnians from the Istrian Coast. However, the reference to the Veneti in Virgil seems to place them in the "innermost realm of the Liburnians" which must have been the goal at which Antenor is said to have arrived. This however implies only that the ancient Liburnians may have once encompassed a wide swath of the Eastern Alps, from Vindelicia, through Noricum, to the Dalmatian coast before the coming of the Veneti.
Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) mentions that Cornelius Nepos (100–24 BC) implied that the Paphlagonian Eneti (Heneti) were ancestors of the Veneti of Italy.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book VI, Chapter 2 - Paphlagonia: "Beyond [the river Billis ]begins the nation of Paphlagonia, by some writers called Pylæmenia; it is closed in behind by the country of Galatia. In it are Mastya, a town founded by the Milesians, and then Cromna, at which spot Cornelius Nepos also places the Heneti, from whom he would have us believe that the Veneti of Italy, who has a similar name, is descended. The city also of Sesamon, now called Amastris, Mount Cytorus, distant sixty-three miles from Tium, the towns of Cimolis and Stephane, and the river Parthenius. The promontory of Carambis, which extends a great distance into the sea, is distant from the mouth of the Euxine three hundred and twenty-five miles, or, according to some writers, three hundred and fifty, being the same distance from the Cimmerian Bosporus, or, as some persons think, only three hundred and twelve miles. There was formerly also a town of the same name, and another near it called Armene; we now find there the colony of Sinope, distant from Mount Cytorus one hundred and sixty-four miles." He lists the towns of Ateste, Acelum, Patavium, Opitergium, Belunum, and Vicetia as belonging to the Veneti.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book III, Chapter 23 - Istria, its People and Locality.
By the 4th century BC the Veneti had been so Celticized that Polybius wrote that the Veneti of the 2nd century BC were identical to the Gauls except for their language.History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC by H. H. Scullard,2002, page 16: "... of healing. In the fourth century, their culture became so Celticized that Polybius described the second-century Veneti as practically in- distinguishable ..." The Greek historian Strabo (64 BC–AD 24), on the other hand, conjectured that the Adriatic Veneti descended from Celts who in turn were related to the later Celtic tribe of the same name who lived on the coast of Brittany and fought against Julius Caesar. He further suggested that the identification of the Adriatic Veneti with the Paphlagonian Enetoi led by Antenor—which he attributes to Sophocles (496–406 BC)—was a mistake due to the similarity of the names.Strabo, Geography, Book IV, Chapter 4: "It is these Veneti [the Gallic tribe of the Belgae], I think, who settled the colony that is on the Adriatic (for about all the Celti that are in Italy migrated from the transalpine land, just as did the Boii and Senones), although, on account of the likeness of name, people call them Paphlagonians. I do not speak positively, however, for with reference to such matters probability suffices." Book V, Chapter 1: "Concerning the Heneti there are two different accounts: Some say that the Heneti too are colonists of those Celti of like name who live on the ocean-coast; while others say that certain of the Heneti of Paphlagonia escaped hither with Antenor from the Trojan War, and, as testimony in this, adduce their devotion to the breeding of horses — a devotion which now, indeed, has wholly disappeared, although formerly it was prized among them, from the fact of their ancient rivalry in the matter of producing mares for mule-breeding." Book 13, Chapter 1: "At any rate, Sophocles says that [...] Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across to the Adriatic Henetice, as it is called." Strabo also gives information on the then-current domains of the Veneti.Strabo, Geography, Book V, Chapter 1.
Pre-Roman period The territory of the Veneti came to the notice of the Greeks in the 4th c. BC. Strabo records that Dionysius I of Syracuse (c. 432–367 BC), desiring the famed horses of the Veneti, founded trading colonies along the Adriatic coast.Geography V.1.4 The Sicilian tyrant favored the town of AdriaStrabo (Geography V.1.8) and Ptolemy (III.1.53) claim Adria was a Venetic town, while Varro (De lingua latina 161), Livy (V.33) and Pliny (N.H. III.120) suggest it was Etruscan. as a trading partner, helping it build canals which linked it to the sea and broke the trading monopoly of Spina.According to Pliny (N.H. III.120) Spina was of Venetic foundation, but according to Ps.Scillace (Periplo 17), Strabo (Geography V.1.7), and Polybius (Histories II.17.1) it was Greek.
In 303/302 BC the Lacedaemonian prince Cleonymus of Sparta led a fleet of mercenaries up the Brenta River intending on sacking Patavium. However, the Veneti fought back and the Spartan ships were captured and destroyed.Livy, X.2
The Veneti were in recurring conflict with the Celtic peoples who then occupied most of Northwestern Italy, although they maintained peaceful relations with the Cenomani Celts who had settled in and eventually absorbed the areas of Brescia and Verona.
Roman period