John,<br>
Sadly your right, and alot more needs to be done on the Italic peoples who fought against, and later for, the Romans. There is some fairly recent material though, that is in English, and deals with aspects of the Samnites etc. S.P. Oakley 1995. 'Hill-forts of the Samnites' is very useful study of these fortifications with excellent maps and plans of these sites. A. Small 2000. 'The use of javelins in central and south Italy in the 4th century BC' in Ancient Italy in its Mediterranean Setting. Although I dont agree with all of his conclusions, this is a good summary of how specialised javelins were being developed in different parts of Italy, as precursors to the later pila. G. Schneider-Herrmann's 1996. 'The Samnites of the Fourth Century BC', is a bit of a disappointment, although she shows alot of representations of Campanian, Lucanian and Apulian warriors, and some of their equipment, she really doesn't understand the material and her interpretations suffer because of this. In 'The Second Punic War: a reappraisal' 1996, there is a chapter by R. Rawlings called, Celts, Spaniards and Samnites: warriors in a soldier's war. Rawling's equating the Samnites in fighting methods and temperment to the Celts and Spaniards is a bit forced, but he does at least bring attention to them as contributing to Hannibal's war effort in Italy - a subject worth looking at since most of his replacements must have been recruited from these and other Italic peoples. Peter Connolly has an excellent introduction to these people's fighting methods and equipment in 'Greece and Rome at War', 1981, and an article on 'The development of breast-plates in Southern Italy' 1986, in Italian Iron-age Artefacts in the British Museum. But even he admits these need to be updated and alot more could be done. Having said that, I'm hoping to turn out a paper soon on the triple-disc and rectangular anatomical cuirasses from Southern Italy. I've managed to track down 38 triple-disc cuirasses in various museums and collections, and am always looking for more to add to my database if anybody knows of any?<br>
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Cheers<br>
Mike Burns<br>
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Ps. I'm a big fan of your SPQR series <p></p><i></i>
