FRENTANI  , one of the

ancient Samnite tribes which formed an independent community on the east coast of Italy . They entered the Roman alliance after their capital, Frentrum, was taken by the Romans in 305 or 304 B.C . (Livy ix . 16 . 45) . This town either changed its name or perished some time after the middle of the 3rd century B.C., when it was issuing coins of its own with an Oscan legend . The town Larinum, which belonged to the same people (Pliny, Nat . Hist . 103), became latinized before 200 B.C., as its coins of that epoch bear a legend—LARINOR(VM)—which cannot reasonably be treated as any-thing but Latin . Several Oscan inscriptions survive from the neighbourhood of Vasto (anc . Histonium), which was in the Frentane area . On the forms of the name, and for further details see R.S.Conway, Italic Dialects, p .

206 ff and p . 212: for the coins id . No . 195-196 .