Lucani

Lucani
Group:	Sabellic
Starting Cities:	8
Attributes:	-20% Food Consumption, +15% Unit Defenses

The Lucani are a large Sabellic faction located in the eponymous region of Lucania in southern Italy.

Their starting neighbours are Campania, the Samnites, Dauni, Peuceti, Taras, Sybaris and the Bruttii.

In-game Description

"The Lucani are a Samnite-descended people that were ruled in peace by a democracy, and in times of war by a dictator. After splitting from the main Samnite group inland, they took the coastal region known as Lucania and gradually managed to conquer all Italic tribes south of Campania, though a rebellion by the Bruttii in the farthest south of their territory would later mark a southern border they never managed to retake."

Starting Cities

• Pyxous: Never a thriving city, Pyxous occupies one of the few good harbours on the Gulf of Policastro and was at different times a colony of both Sybaris and Rhegion.
• Elea: Elea, modern Velia, was founded under the name Hyele by Phocaean Greeks around 538 to 535 BCE, following 8 to 10 years of wandering after they were forced to flee a Persian siege of their homeland. It is most famous as the source of the Eleatic school of philosophy, the most famous member of which, Zeno of Elea, is known for his paradoxes demonstrating the logical impossibility of motion among other deliberate absurdities.
• Paistos: Paistos, known as Paestum to the Romans and modern Italians, is a Lucanian city originally founded by Sybarite colonists as Poseidonia, named after Poseidon. It did not completely lose its Greek character when absorbed by the Lucani as both cultures thrived within the city.
• Potentia: Devastated repeatedly by earthquakes over the centuries, Potentia chose to side with Carthage after Rome's defeat at Cannae and was subsequently re-conquered and demoted by Rome after Hannibal was driven from Italy.
• Grumentum: Grumentum, located near the modern town of Grumento Nova, is a town settled by the Lucani from at least the 6th century BCE. It would later be the site of a Roman victory over Hannibal in the Second Punic War.
• Garaguso: A Lucani city inhabited since prehistoric times, Garaguso boasts a marble temple called Heroon, showing heavy Greek influence from its earliest days.
• Nerulum: A small town of the Lucani situated at the junction of the routes from Capua to Rhegion and Venusia to Grumentum.
• Laos: Located on the Lao river that formed the boundary between the historical territory of the Lucani and Brutii, Laos may have been a refuge to Sybarites when their city fell in 510 BCE.

Strategy

Your starting city is located away from your neighbouring factions, allowing you to unite your large starting territory while there is little contact with rival factions, ensuring a relatively easy start.

Though you start with many neighbours, many of them are small, so your large amount of starting cities may convince some of them to pay money in exchange for a truce. You can therefore use diplomacy to keep some of your borders safe while also earning some extra gold.

Your Greek and Illyric neighbours have superior brigade rosters in the early game compared to your own Sabellic roster, so it might be preferable to focus your initial expansion on the Bruttii, Samnites and Campania instead.

Trivia & History

• Historically, much or all of the region given to the Lucani in-game was originally settled by Greek colonies in the coastal areas and Oenotrians (an archaic people of uncertain origin) in the inland regions. The Lucani would have only had a small territory directly next to the Samnites and Campania initially, and did not expand their hold over all of Lucania until the middle of the 5th Century BC when they began aggressively expanding towards the southeast.
• Sybaris had already been destroyed by Kroton by the time the Lucani had expanded over the entirety of their in-game starting territory, so the existence of the Sybaris faction alongside a large Lucani faction in-game is somewhat anachronistic.
• The cities of Paistos, Pyxous and Laos were originally Sybarite colonies and not taken by the Lucani until after Sybaris was already destroyed. Presumably they were given to the Lucani to balance Sybaris' start, preventing the latter from having a large and disjointed territory.
• Elea was originally a Greek colony as well, though not one of Sybaris but of Phocaean Greeks who settled here after the Battle of Alalia. Unlike the other originally Greek cities given to the Lucani in-game, Elea historically managed to remain independent from the Lucani, but was presumably merged with them in-game to simplify the faction roster and avoid having to create a unique faction for one isolated Greek city.
• Historically, the Lucani reached their greatest extent in the middle of the 4th Century BC. Besides the area represented as theirs in-game, they had expanded into territory in northern Bruttium and had made themselves master of most of the Greeks on Lucania's eastern coast as well (such as Heraclea, near in-game Polieum). Lucanian expansion halted around 356 BC when the Lucani of northern Bruttium (mixed with native Oenotrian elements) rebelled to form a new tribe known as the Bruttii, though the Bruttii would continue to expand at the cost of the Greek colonies and eventually ally with the Lucani they rebelled from.
• In the 330s BC, King Alexander of Epirus came to the defense of the Greek colonies against Lucanian, Bruttian and Iapygian aggression. Alexander managed to restore several Greek colonies (such as Heraclea) to independence, but was eventually killed in a battle with the Lucani.
• The Lucani first came into contact with Rome during the Samnite Wars, at times siding with Rome against the Samnites. They were conquered by Rome in the 270s, after having assisted Pyrrhus of Epirus in his wars against Rome. They would continue to rebel against Rome, most notably when they sided with Hannibal of Carthage in the Second Punic War, and later during the Social War of 91-87 BC.
• The faction's icon is a charging bull. The design is taken from coins found in several Greek colonies of Lucania.