AURUNCI  , the name given by the

Romans to a tribe which in historical times occupied only a strip of coast on either side of the Mons Massicus between the Volturnus and the Liris, although it must at an earlier period have extended over a considerably wider area . Their own name for themselves in the 4th century B.C. was Ausones, and in Greek writers we find the name Ausonia applied to Latium and Campania (see Strabo v. p . 247; Aristotle, Pol. iv . (vii.) ro; Dion . Hal. i . 72), while in the Augustan poets (e.g . Virgil, Aen. vii . 795) it is used as one of many synonyms for Italy . In history the tribe appears only for a brief space, from 340 to 295 B.C . (Mommsen, C.I.L. x. pp . 451, 463, 465), and their struggle with the Romans ended in complete extermination; their territory was parcelled out between the Latin colonies of Cales (Livy viii . 16) and Suessa Aurunca (id. ix .

28) which took the

place of an older town called Ausona (id. ix . 25; viii . 15), and the maritime colonies Sinuessa (the older Vescia) and Minturnae (both in 295 B.C., Livy X . 21) . The coin formerly attributed to Suessa Aurunca on the strength of its supposed legend Aurunkud has now been certainly referred to Naples (see R . S . Conway, Italic Dialects, 145, and Verner's law in Italy, p . 78, where the change of s to r is explained as probably due to the Latin conquest) . Seeing that the tribe was blotted out at the beginning of the 3rd century B.C., we can scarcely wonder that no record of its speech survives; but its geographical situation and the frequency of the co-suffix in that strip of coast (besides Aurunci itself we have the names Vescia, Mons Massicus, Marica, Glanica and Caedicii; see Italic Dialects, pp . 283 f.) rank them beyond doubt with their neighbours the Volsci (q.v.) . (R . S .