The Germani were an obscure pre-Roman ancient people of the Iberian Peninsula which settled around the 4th century BC in western Oretania, an ancient region corresponding to the south of Ciudad Real and the eastern tip of Badajoz provinces.
The Germani were an obscure pre-Roman ancient people of the Iberian Peninsula which settled around the 4th century BC in western Oretania, an ancient region corresponding to the south of Ciudad Real and the eastern tip of Badajoz provinces.
Roman authors believed that a people of mixed Belgic and Germanic descent had somehow migrated to the Iberian Peninsula around the fourth Century BC. [1] [2] They also included people of Celtiberian and native Iberian-Tartessian affiliation.
Archaeological evidence retrieved from local Iron Age hillforts such as Alarcos (Ciudad Real) and Cerro de las Cabezas confirm that the material culture of the Germani did not differ from their southeastern Iberian neighbours or from the Celtiberians.
Located to the west of the Olcades, they are credited of founding in western Oretania the towns of Mirobriga (near Capilla, Badajoz), their Capital Orissia or Oria, also designated Oretum Germanorum (Cerro Dominguez, near Granátula de Calatrava – Ciudad Real), Gemella Germanorum (Almagro – Ciudad Real), Lacurris (Alarcos – Ciudad Real), Sisapo (La Bienvenida, Almodóvar – Ciudad Real) and Mentesa Oretana (Villanueva de la Fuente – Ciudad Real). [3]
Whether the Germani were clients or allies of the wealthy Iberian Oretani people during the 3rd century BC remains unclear, but they certainly supported the powerful Oretanian king Orison at the Battle of Helicen in 228 BC (Helike in the Greek sources, perhaps Elche de la Sierra, Elche or another Oretanian city) against the Carthaginians under Hamilcar Barca. [4] Orison’s defeat in 227 BC [5] and his signing of an alliance treaty with Carthage, however, caused a major friction between the Oretani and their Germani allies who promptly repudiated its terms, and continued to resist Punic expansion until they were subdued by Hannibal in 221 BC. They were certainly amongst the Oretani troops sent to Africa at the outbreak of the Second Punic War. The Germani appear to have adopted a less hostile stance towards Rome, in 156 BC were included into Hispania Citerior Province and were gradually assimilated by the Oretani.
The Guadiana River is an international river defining a long stretch of the Portugal-Spain border, separating Extremadura and Andalusia (Spain) from Alentejo and Algarve (Portugal). The river's basin extends from la Mancha and the eastern portion of Extremadura to the southern provinces of the Algarve; the river and its tributaries flow from east to west, then south through Portugal to the border towns of Vila Real de Santo António (Portugal) and Ayamonte (Spain), where it flows into the Gulf of Cádiz. With a course that covers a distance of 829 kilometres (515 mi), it is the fourth-longest in the Iberian Peninsula, and its hydrological basin extends over an area of approximately 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi).
Castilla–La Mancha is an autonomous community of Spain. Comprising the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara and Toledo, it was created in 1982. The government headquarters are in Toledo, which is the capital de facto.
Ciudad Real is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region.
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 Celtiberians were a group of Celts and Celticized peoples inhabiting an area in the central-northeastern Iberian Peninsula during the final centuries BC. They were explicitly mentioned as being Celts by several classic authors. These tribes spoke the Celtiberian language and wrote it by adapting the Iberian alphabet, in the form of the Celtiberian script. The numerous inscriptions that have been discovered, some of them extensive, have enabled scholars to classify the Celtiberian language as a Celtic language, one of the Hispano-Celtic languages that were spoken in pre-Roman and early Roman Iberia. Archaeologically, many elements link Celtiberians with Celts in Central Europe, but also show large differences with both the Hallstatt culture and La Tène culture.
The Cynetes or Conii were one of the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, living in today's Algarve and Lower Alentejo regions of southern Portugal, and the southern part of Badajoz and the northwestern portions of Córdoba and Ciudad Real provinces in Spain before the 6th century BC. According to Justin's epitome, the mythical Gargoris and Habis were their founding kings.
The Celtici were a Celtic tribe or group of tribes of the Iberian Peninsula, inhabiting three definite areas: in what today are the regions of Alentejo and the Algarve in Portugal; in the Province of Badajoz and north of Province of Huelva in Spain, in the ancient Baeturia; and along the coastal areas of Galicia. Classical authors give various accounts of the Celtici's relationships with the Gallaeci, Celtiberians and Turdetani.
The Oretani or Oretanii were a pre-Roman ancient Iberian people of the Iberian Peninsula, that lived in northeastern Andalusia, in the upper Baetis (Guadalquivir) river valley, eastern Marianus Mons, and the southern area of present-day La Mancha.
Contestani is an ethnonym of Roman Spain of the imperial period. It appears chiefly in the Greco-Roman writers Pliny the Elder, 1st century, and Claudius Ptolemy, 2nd century. Pliny might be considered the more creditable, as he was for a time procurator of the official Hispania Tarraconensis, a province of the Roman Empire encompassing all the north and all the east of the Iberian Peninsula.
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 Carpetani, also named Karpesioi by Polybius, were one of the Celtic peoples inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula prior to the Roman conquest. Their core domain was constituted by the lands between the Tagus and the Anas, in the southern Meseta. Agriculture is thought to have had a greater importance in the Carpetanian economy than other neighboring peoples'.
The Arevaci or Aravaci, were a Celtic people who settled in the central Meseta of northern Hispania and dominated most of Celtiberia from the 4th to late 2nd centuries BC. The Vaccaei were their allies.
The Turmodigi were a pre-Roman ancient people, later mixed with the Celts people of northern Spain who occupied the area within the Arlanzón and Arlanza river valleys in the 2nd Iron Age.
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.
The Titii or Tithii were a small and obscure Celtiberian people, whose lands were located along the middle Jalón and upper Tajuña valleys, somewhere between Alhama de Aragón in Zaragoza and Molina de Aragón in Guadalajara provinces.
The Pellendones, also designated Pelendones Celtiberorum and Cerindones, were an ancient pre-Roman Celtic people living on the Iberian Peninsula. From the early 4th century BC they inhabited the region near the source of the river Duero in what today is north-central Spain, an area comprising the north of Soria, the southeast of Burgos and the southwest of La Rioja provinces.
The Belli, also designated Beli or Belaiscos, were an ancient pre-Roman Celtic Celtiberian people who lived in the modern Spanish province of Zaragoza from the 3rd Century BC.
The Cratistii were an ancient pre-Roman, stock-raising people whose lands were situated along the upper Tagus valley, in the elevated plateau region of the western Cuenca and northeast Province of Teruel.
Segóbriga was an important Celtic and Roman city, and is today an impressive site located on a hill near the present town of Saelices. Research has revealed remains of important buildings, which have since been preserved and made visible in the Archaeological Park. It was declared a National Monument on June 3, 1931, and is now considered cultural heritage under the official denomination Bien de Interés Cultural which comes with extensive legal protections.
