The Frentani (Greek: Φρεντανοί, Strabo, Ptolemy; Φερεντανοί, Pol., Dionys.) were an ancient people of central Italy, occupying the tract on the east coast of the peninsula from the Apennines to the Adriatic, and from the frontiers of Apulia to those of the Marrucini. They were bounded on the west by the Samnites, with whom they were closely connected, and from whom they were originally descended. Hence Scylax assigns the whole of this line of coast, from the frontiers of Apulia to those of Picenum, to the Samnites. (Scyl. § 15. p. 5.) Their exact limits are less clearly defined, and there is considerable discrepancy in the statements of ancient geographers: Larinum, with its territory (extending from the Tifernus (modern Biferno) to the Frento), being by some writers termed a city of the Frentani (Ptol. iii. 1. § 65), while the more general opinion included it in Apulia, and thus made the river Tifernus (Biferno) the limit of the two countries (Pliny iii. 12. s. 17; Mel. ii. 4. § 6). T...