The Bronze of Ascoli was a bronze tablet discovered in Asculum (Ascoli), Rome in 1908, which became notable for the study of the ancient Iberian language, because it contained the names of Iberian horsemen of the Turma Salluitana, who received Roman citizenship in 89 BCE after their participation in the siege of Asculum (modern Ascoli Piceno). [1]
This inscription was a key document to understand the concept of bi-member names that Iberians used.
The plaque primarily details the rewards provided by Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo to the Turma Salluitana for their role in capturing Ascoli during the Social War or the War of the Allies (around 90 B.C.).
While it was originally believed that all the names appearing on this bronze were Iberian, various studies have suggested the hypothesis that some of the names have Vasconic-Aquitanian onomastic origins, such as ENNEGES or ARRANES ABRISCAR F. [2] [3]
It is worth noting that the auxiliary riders who participated in this battle came from Hispania, specifically from the middle Ebro valley.
Another aspect to consider is that the parents of these riders still had foreign names, while some of them had Latinized names. This reflects the progress of the Romanization of the empire.
The tablet is divided into four sections: [4]
This section is composed of the first three lines, detailing the rewards that were given to the cavalry squadron, emphasizing the grant of Roman citizenship. These lines indicate the granting of citizenship by Pompey Strabo to the Hispanic riders, by virtue of the LEX IULIA de CIVITATE LATINIS ET SOCIIS DANDA, in the camp located in front of the city of Ascoli, on December 17.
This section lists the members of the concilium (campaign council composed of legates, military tribunes, and the Roman social elite). The names of the Roman officials included the nomen, praenomen, filiation, and tribe. Among these names were Pompey Magnus and Lucius Sergius Catilina.
This section specifies who is granted Roman citizenship, presenting a list of their Iberian riders from present-day Zaragoza, Lérida, Ejea de los Caballeros, and other cities.
In this final section, there is a reference to the first block, with additional rewards offered to the riders being added.
There are various hypotheses regarding its name as TVRMA SALLVITANA (Salduie, an Iberian city upon which Caesar Augusta, modern-day Zaragoza, was later founded). The origin of its components varies: [5]
The part that includes the horsemen names goes as follows:
TVRMA SALLVITANA | AGIRNES BENNABELS F. | |
---|---|---|
SANIBELSER ADINGIBAS F. | ILERDENSES |
Caesaraugusta or Caesar Augusta was the name of the Roman city of Zaragoza, founded as a Colonia Inmune from Rome in 14 BC, possibly on December 23, on the intensely Romanized Iberian city of Salduie. Its foundation occurred in the context of the reorganization of the provinces of Hispania by Caesar Augustus after his victory in the Astur-Cantabrian wars.
Hispania Tarraconensis was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. It encompassed much of the northern, eastern and central territories of modern Spain along with modern northern Portugal. Southern Spain, the region now called Andalusia, was the province of Hispania Baetica. On the Atlantic west lay the province of Lusitania, partially coincident with modern-day Portugal.
The Iberians were an ancient people settled in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, at least from the 6th century BCE. They are described in Greek and Roman sources. Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians.
The Lusitanians were an Indo-European-speaking people living in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, in present-day central Portugal and Extremadura and Castilla y Leon of Spain. After its conquest by the Romans, the land was subsequently incorporated as a Roman province named after them (Lusitania).
The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who, on the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century, inhabited a territory that spanned between the upper course of the Ebro river and the southern basin of the western Pyrenees, a region that coincides with present-day Navarre, western Aragon and northeastern La Rioja, in the Iberian Peninsula. The Vascones are often considered ancestors of the present-day Basques to whom they left their name.
Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces created in Hispania on 27 BC. Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic divisions of Hispania under the Visigoths. Its territory approximately corresponds to modern Andalusia.
The Iberian language was the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre-Migration Era. An ancient Iberian culture can be identified as existing between the 7th and 1st centuries BC, at least.
The Celtiberian script is a Paleohispanic script that was the main writing system of the Celtiberian language, an extinct Continental Celtic language, which was also occasionally written using the Latin alphabet. This script is a direct adaptation of the northeastern Iberian script, the most frequently used of the Iberian scripts.
Tarraco is the ancient name of the current city of Tarragona. It was the oldest Roman settlement on the Iberian Peninsula. It became the capital of Hispania Tarraconensis following the latter's creation during the Roman Empire.
The Aquitanian language was the language of the ancient Aquitani, spoken on both sides of the western Pyrenees in ancient Aquitaine and in the areas south of the Pyrenees in the valleys of the Basque Country before the Roman conquest. It probably survived in Aquitania north of the Pyrenees until the Early Middle Ages.
Picenum was a region of ancient Italy. The name was assigned by the Romans, who conquered and incorporated it into the Roman Republic. Picenum became Regio V in the Augustan territorial organisation of Roman Italy. It is now in Marche and the northern part of Abruzzo.
The Lusones were an ancient Celtiberian (Pre-Roman) people of the Iberian Peninsula, who lived in the high Tajuña River valley, northeast of Guadalajara. They were eliminated by the Romans as a significant threat in the end of the 2nd century BC.
The Via Augusta was the longest and busiest of the major roads built by the Romans in ancient Hispania. According to historian Pierre Sillières, who has supervised excavation of Roman sites in Spain to identify the exact route followed by the Via Augusta, it was more a system of roads than a single road. Approximately 1,500 km (930 mi) long, the Via Augusta was built to link Spain with Italy, running from the southwestern coastal city of Gades (Cádiz) to the Pyrenees Mountains along inland valleys parallel to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. As the main axis of the road network in Roman Hispania, it appears in ancient sources such as the itinerary inscribed on the Vicarello Cups as well in as the Antonine Itinerary.
Augusta Bilbilis was a city founded by the Romans in the province of Hispania Tarraconensis. It was the birthplace of famous poet Martial c. 40 AD. The modern town of Calatayud was founded near this Roman site.
The Vocontii were a Gallic people dwelling on the western foothills of the Alps during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
The Lex Ursonensis is the foundation charter of the Caesarean colonia Iulia Genetiva at Urso near Osuna in southern Spain. A copy of its text was inscribed on bronze under the Flavians, portions of which were discovered in 1870/71. The original law spanned nine tablets with three or five columns of text each and comprised over 140 sections (rubricae). Of these four tablets survive, including sections 61-82, 91-106 and 123-134. Remains are kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid.
The Lacetani were an ancient Iberian (pre-Roman) people of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Berones were a pre-Roman Celtic people of ancient Spain, although they were not part of the Celtiberians. They lived north of the latter and close to the Cantabrian Conisci in the middle Ebro region between the Tirón and Alhama rivers.
This section of the timeline of Hispania concerns Spanish and Portuguese history events from the Carthaginian conquests to before the barbarian invasions.