SENTI´NUM
SENTI´NUM (
Σεντῖνον: Eth.
Σεντινατής, Sentinas--ātis:
Sentino), a city of Umbria, on the E. slope of the Apennines, but near the central ridge of those mountains, and not far from the sources of the Aesis (
Esino).
It is celebrated in history as the scene of a great battle fought in the Third Samnite War, B.C. 295, when the allied forces of the Samnites and Gauls were defeated by the Roman consul Q. Fabius. Gellius Egnatius, the Samnite general, was slain in the battle; while the Roman consul P. Decius followed the example of his father, and devoted himself for the safety of the Roman army. (
Liv. 10.27-
30; Pol. 2.19.)
The scene of this decisive victory, one of the most memorable in the Roman annals, is placed by Livy “in Sentinati agro;” but we have no more precise clue to its position, nor do the details of the battle give us any assistance. Sentinum itself seems to have been a strong town, as in the Perusian War it was besieged by Octavian himself without success; though it was afterwards taken by surprise by his lieutenant, Salvidienus Rufus, by whom it was plundered and burnt to the ground. (
D. C. 48.13.)
It was subsequently revived, by receiving a body of colonists, under the Triumvirate (
Lib. Col. p. 258), but did not obtain the title of a Colonia, and continued under the Roman Empire to be a town of municipal rank. (
Plin. Nat. 3.14. s. 19;
Strab. v. p.227;
Ptol. 3.1.53; Orell.
Inscr. 3861, 4949.) Its site is marked by the village still called
Sentino, on the river of the same name (a small stream falling into the
Esino), a few miles below the modern town of
Sasso Ferrato. [
E.H.B]
