Historians believe the Oscan people, descendants of Campania’s Neolithic inhabitants, built the city of Pompeii in the 6th or 7th century B.C. The Samnites, an Italic tribe, conquered the Osci in the 5th century B.C., though the city likely came under Greek and Etruscan influence before that time. After bitter struggles with the Romans during the 4th century B.C., the Samnites fell under Roman control, but they rebelled along with other Italians against Rome in 89 B.C. The forces of Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla besieged Pompeii at that time, but they didn’t manage to conquer the city until 80 B.C., barely a century before the fateful eruption would destroy it.