EQUUS TUTICUS
EQUUS TUTICUS or
EQUOTUTICUS (
Τούτικον,
Ptol. 3.1.67: S. Eleuterio), a town of the Samnites in the territory of the Hirpini, situated on the Via Appia Trajana, 21 M. P. from Beneventum. Its name is not mentioned as an ancient Samnite city, and the first notice of it that occurs is an incidental one in Cicero (
Cic. Att. 6.1.1), from which we may infer that it was on the road to Brundusium.
This is confirmed by the Itineraries, in all of which it appears under slight modifications of name (Equus Tuticus,
Itin. Ant. pp. 103, 112; Equus Magnus,
Itin. Marit. p. 610; Aequus Tuticus,
Tab. Peut.). Great discrepancy has arisen concerning its position, partly from a confusion between the different branches of the Via Appia, which separated at Beneventum [
VIA APPIA], and partly from the belief, originating with an old Scholiast on the passage, that Equotuticus (as he writes the name) was the place described by Horace (
Sat. 1.5. 87) as “Oppidulum quod versu dicere non est.”
But it is quite clear that the poet followed a different line of route; and Equus Tuticus is placed by the Itineraries on the road from Beneventum to Aecae (
Troja), 21 M. P. from the former city.
The line of the ancient road may be traced distinctly (by the assistance of bridges, milestones, &c.), from
Benevento, by
Buonalbergo and
Casalbore, to a place called
S. Eleuterio, about 8 miles N. of
Ariano, and 2 from
Castel Franco, where inscriptions and other ancient remains have been found; among others, a Roman milestone which wants the numerals, but the distance agrees exactly with the 21 miles of the Itinerary from Beneventum.
The intermediate station of Forum Novum (Forno Novo,
Itin. Hier. p. 610), placed by the Jerusalem Itinerary 10 miles from Beneventum, and 11 from Equus Tuticus, must have been at
Buonalbergo. (Mommsen,
Topografia degli Irpini, in
Bullett. d. Inst. 1847, p. 1.70, 1848, pp. 7, 8.)
It is probable that Equus Tuticus never enjoyed municipal rank: its name is not found in Pliny among the towns of the Hirpini, and at a later period it was certainly annexed to the territory of Beneventum, (Mommsen,
l.c. p. 170.)
This explains the expression of the Itinerary that it was on the confines of Campania ( “Equotutico, ubi Campania limited habet,”
Itin. Ant. p. 111.
See the art.
CAMPANIA p. 494). If the Tuticum of Ptolemy be the same with Equus Tuticus, he has altogether misplaced it.
[
E.H.B]
