People
Mauruceni
Marrucini
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The Marrucini were a Sabellic people on the Adriatic coast along the lower Aternus river, with their chief town at Teate, now Chieti in the Abruzzo. The Roman writer Cato offered a curious origin for their name: a Marsian killed an enemy before a Paelignian could, and so the name was bent from Marsus. Allied with Rome from 304 BC, the tribe rose against it in the Social War of 91 BC under Herius Asinius, who fell fighting Marius. Their capital stands close by on the map, its name garbled by a copyist into Tea Nomarruci.