Aquitani

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The tribes confederated as the Aquitani and other pre-Indo-European tribes are in black Aquitani tribes map-fr.svg
The tribes confederated as the Aquitani and other pre-Indo-European tribes are in black

The Aquitani were a tribe that lived in the region between the Pyrenees, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Garonne, in present-day southwestern France [1] in the 1st century BC. The Romans dubbed this region Gallia Aquitania . Classical authors such as Julius Caesar and Strabo clearly distinguish the Aquitani from the other peoples of Gaul, and note their similarity to others in the Iberian Peninsula.

Contents

Their old language, the Aquitanian language, was a precursor of the Basque language [2] and the substrate for the Gascon language (one of the Romance languages) spoken in Gascony. Between the 1st century and the 13th century, the Aquitani gradually adopted the Gascon language while part of the Roman Empire, then the Duchy of Gascony and the Duchy of Aquitaine.

History

At the time of the Roman conquest, Julius Caesar, who defeated them in his campaign in Gaul, describes them as making up a distinct part of Gaul:

All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani [3]

Despite apparent cultural and linguistic connections to (Vascones), the region of Aquitania extended only to the Pyrenees according to Caesar:

Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Hispania: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star. [4]

Relation to Basque people and language

Late Romano-Aquitanian funerary slabs and altars contain what seem to be the names of deities or people similar to certain names in modern Basque, which has led many philologists and linguists to conclude that Aquitanian was closely related to an older form of Basque. Julius Caesar draws a clear line between the Aquitani, living in present-day south-western France and speaking Aquitanian, and their neighboring Celts living to the north. [2] The fact that the region was known as the Vasconia in the Early Middle Ages, a name that evolved into the better known form of Gascony, along with other toponymic evidence, seems to corroborate that assumption.

Tribes

Tribes in Aquitania (as was defined in the 1st century BC) Map Gallia Tribes Towns.png
Tribes in Aquitania (as was defined in the 1st century BC)
Late distribution of tribes in Novempopulania at the end of the 6th century AD, former Aquitania proper (as was defined in the 1st century BC) Novempopulania1.png
Late distribution of tribes in Novempopulania at the end of the 6th century AD, former Aquitania proper (as was defined in the 1st century BC)

Although the territory originally inhabited by the Aquitani came to be known as Novempopulania (“province of the nine peoples”) in the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages (up to the 6th century), this administrative designation does not reflect the earlier ethnic diversity of the region. [5] Ancient sources indicate that the number of Aquitanian tribes was considerably higher. Strabo mentions about twenty peoples in his Geography. [6] The lists provided by Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy, supplemented by scattered information in the works of Julius Caesar, allow the identification of more than thirty distinct ethnonyms. [7] [8] [9] By comparing these classical sources and incorporating epigraphic evidence, modern scholars generally estimate that pre-Roman Aquitania comprised approximately thirty-two or thirty-three tribes. [10] [11]

Aquitani tribes

In the southern slopes of western Pyrenees Mountains, not in Aquitania but in northern Hispania Tarraconensis:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Waldman, Carl; Mason, Catherine (2006). Encyclopedia of European Peoples. Infobase Publishing. p. 38. ISBN   9781438129181. The Aquitani [...] lived in Gaul in the region between the Garonne River and the Pyrenees in present-day southwestern France [...].
  2. 1 2 Trask, R.L. (1997). The History of Basque. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 398–403. ISBN   0-415-13116-2.
  3. ↑ These are indeed the opening lines of Caesar’s account of his war in Gaul: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen [...] dividit. Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico 1.1, edition of T. Rice Holmes
  4. ↑ Aquitania a Garumna flumine ad Pyrenaeos montes et eam partem Oceani quae est ad Hispaniam pertinet; spectat inter occasum solis et septentriones.
  5. ↑ E. Demougeot, La formation de la Novempopulanie, Paris, 1979.
  6. ↑ Strabo, Geography, Book IV, 2.1–2.
  7. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book IV, 108–109.
  8. ↑ Ptolemy, Geography, Book II, 7.
  9. ↑ Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Book I, 1; Book III, 20–27.
  10. ↑ J.-P. Bost, L’Aquitaine antique, Bordeaux, 1991.
  11. ↑ Barry Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts, Oxford University Press, 1997.
  12. 1 2 Judge, A. (2007-02-07). Linguistic Policies and the Survival of Regional Languages in France and Britain. Springer. p. 70. ISBN   9780230286177.
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