A statue of the sannita bull

View from San Gregorio Matese con la linea luminosa del mar Tirreno

The individual Sabelle tribes gathered together to give thanks in a religious ritual, the Ver Sacrum or Sacred Spring. This was a means by which the people of the osca language moved themselves further forward along the Appennines.

In order to win a battle, to remove a danger or to put an end to a natural disaster such as a famine or an epidemic, the Sabelli promised to sacrifice to Mamerte all that was to be born in the next spring. The children that were born in such a period were not sacrificed but left to grow, but they were "sacrati". This meant that they were consecrated to God. At their adult age they had an obligation to leave their tribe and to try new forests and pastures under the guidance of a sacred animal to the divinity. The animal-guide could be a bull, a wolf, a woodpecker, a bear or a red deer. The emigrating group would settle down at the point that the animal had indicating. Today we know that the Sanniti followed a bull, the Irpini and the Lucani a wolf, and the Picenti a woodpecker.

The first Ver Sacrum of the Sabelli was carried out in prehistoric times. The first "sacrati" to settle themselves down in the Sannio were lead from "Comius Castronius" by a bull to Bovianum, which became the cradle of their nation.

It is clear that the Sabelli did not constitute a unitary nation, but they were uniform in a tribal way that they were able to differ in practices and customs in the political order. The restlessness of the movements of the Sabelli and the different personalities of those who guided several "Sacred Springs' explain in part the tribal divisions.

An ethnic truth therefore is outlined. The Sabelli, constituted from the tribes of the Alfaterni, the Sanniti, the Apuli and the Frentani, occupied the zone that goes from the Gulf of Salerno, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the central southern coast of the Adriatic Sea.