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The Arevaci or Aravaci (Arevakos, Arvatkos or Areukas in the Greek sources [1] ), were a Celtic [2] [3] 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 Arevaci were of Celtic origin and part of the group of peoples known as the Celtiberians. [3] There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the ancestors of the Celtiberian groups were installed in the Meseta area of the Iberian peninsula from at least 1000 BC and probably much earlier. [4] Some[ who? ] think their ancestors were early ‘Q-Celtic’ speakers from Gaul who migrated to the peninsula around the mid-6th century BC, arriving at about the same time as the powerful Vaccaei people of the western Meseta.[ citation needed ] This led some modern historians[ who? ] to state that the Arevaci were actually an offshoot of the latter, thus their tribal name which means ‘Are-Vaccei’ or ‘eastern’ Vacceians.[ citation needed ] However, an alternative etymology is given by the Roman geographer Pliny the elder [5] who calls them Celtiberi Arevaci, adding that they borrowed their name from the river Areva (Araviana) [6] and thus their designation could be translated as ‘those who dwell at the Areva’ or ‘on the Areva’.
The nucleus of the Arevaci homeland was the modern provinces of Soria and most of Guadalajara up to the Tagus sources, extending to the eastern half of Segovia and the southeastern Burgos, but for a while they dominated parts of neighbouring Zaragoza province. They founded or seized several important city-states ( Civitates ) in northern Celtiberia, namely:
Other towns often mentioned in the sources, such as Segovia, Ocilis, Comfluenta, Tucris, Lutia, Mallia, Lagni and Colenda have not yet been located. [1] [8] [9] [10]
They shared with the Vaccaei the same social structure of collectivist type which enabled the latter to exploit successfully the wheat- and grass-growing areas of the western plateau, [11] though archeological evidence suggests that the Arevaci were predominantly stock-raisers who practiced transhumance in the grazing lowlands of the upper Ebro valley. They reared sheep (mostly for their wool), horses, and oxen, as attested by the tribute of thirty talents imposed upon Numantia and Termantia by Consul Quintus Aulus Pompeius in 139 BC, for which the Numantines and Termantines paid (albeit reluctantly) in the form of 3,000 ox-hides, 800 horses, and 9,000 saga (woollen cloaks). [12]
They practised the rite of excarnation by exposing the corpses of warriors slain in battle to the vultures, as described by Silius Italicus [13] and Claudius Aelianus, [14] and attested by funerary stelae and painted pottery from Numantia.
Regarded by the Greeks and Romans as the most militaristic people of the eastern Meseta, the Arevaci were said by Herodotus to have embarked early on an expansionist policy by taking part in the Celtici migrations of the 5th century BC alongside off-shots of Lusones and Vaccaei peoples to settle in the Iberian southwest. [15] In the late 4th-early 3rd centuries BC however, the Arevaci shifted the direction of their expansion to the east, towards the upper Duero and south into the central Iberian system mountains. Here they displaced the earlier inhabitants the Pellendones, conquering the towns of Savia and Numantia and submitted the Uraci, thus gaining control over the strategic towns of Aregrada (Ágreda? – Soria; Celtiberian mints: Areicoraticos/Arecorataz), Cortona (Medinaceli? – Soria), Segontia (Sigüenza – Guadalajara) and Arcobriga (Monreal de Ariza – Zaragoza).
In around the mid-3rd century BC, the Arevaci founded with their neighbours the Lusones, Belli, and Titii, a tribal federation designated the Celtiberian confederacy, with Numantia as its capital.
During the Second Punic War the confederacy kept itself neutral, though Celtiberian mercenaries are mentioned fighting for both sides on a number of occasions. [16] [17] The first Roman incursion into the Celtiberian heartland occurred around 195 BC under Consul Cato the Elder, who attacked unsuccessfully the towns of Seguntia Celtiberorum and Numantia, [18] where he allegedly delivered a speech to the numantines. [19]
The Arevaci and the Belli revolted against Roman rule in the Celtiberian War. [20]
With the fall of Numantia in 134-133 BC, the Romans forcibly disbanded the Celtiberian confederacy and allowed the Pellendones and Uraci to regain their independence from the Arevaci, who were now technically submitted and absorbed into Hispania Citerior province. Nevertheless, the remaining Arevacian cities managed to keep much of their military capabilities intact, and led by Clunia and Termantia they helped defending Celtiberia from invasion attempts by both the Lusitani in 114 BC and the Cimbri, who poured from the Pyrenees around 104-103 BC. [21] Emboldened by these successes – and resented by the lack of Roman recognition for their efforts – the Arevaci began secretly hatching plots against Roman rule by stirring up their equally disgruntled Celtiberian neighbours into the 99-81 BC uprisings (a.k.a. 3rd Celtiberian ‘War’). However, not only were the Arevacians ruthlessly quashed by Proconsul Titus Didius in 93-92 BC, but also had to endure the destruction of their new capital, Termantia, and the city of Colenda in around 98-94 BC. [22] [23]
In spite of being technically made subject and finally aggregated to Hispania Citerior after 93 BC, the Arevacians’ relationship with Rome remained uneasy. During the Sertorian Wars, the Arevaci sided with Quintus Sertorius and provided unspecified troops to his army. [24] [25] In fact, they still continued to resist Roman integration and assimilation policies for decades, a situation coupled by fiscal abuse that led to sporadic outbursts of violence well into the 1st century AD.
Although the Arevaci later, in 29 BC, contributed an auxiliary cavalry unit (the Ala Hispanorum Aravacorum ) to fight alongside the Roman legions in the first Astur-Cantabrian war, Tacitus [26] cites heavy taxation as the major reason for a revolt in the Termes region which resulted in the ambush and assassination of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Praetor of H. Citerior in 25 AD.
Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus was a consul of the Roman Republic for the year 138 BC together with Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio. He was an optimate politician and a military commander in Hispania and in Illyria. He was the son of Marcus Junius Brutus and brother of Marcus Junius Brutus. He had a son also named Decimus Junius Brutus and his grandson was Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus.
The Celtiberians were a group of Celts and Celticized peoples inhabiting an area in the central-northeastern Iberian Peninsula during the final centuries BCE. 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 allowed 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.
Numantia is an ancient Celtiberian settlement, whose remains are located on a hill known as Cerro de la Muela in the current municipality of Garray (Soria), Spain.
The Vettones were an Iron Age pre-Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula of possibly Celtic ethnicity.
The Vaccaei or Vaccei were a pre-Roman Celtic people of Spain, who inhabited the sedimentary plains of the central Duero valley, in the Meseta Central of northern Hispania. Their capital was Intercatia in Paredes de Nava.
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.
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 Numantine War was the last conflict of the Celtiberian Wars fought by the Romans to subdue those people along the Ebro. It was a twenty-year conflict between the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior and the Roman government. It began in 154 BC as a revolt of the Celtiberians of Numantia on the Douro. The first phase of the war ended in 151, but in 143, war flared up again with a new insurrection in Numantia.
The Second Celtiberian War was one of the three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the presence of the Romans in Hispania.
The First Celtiberian War and Second Celtiberian War were two of the three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the presence of the Romans in Hispania.
The First Celtiberian was the first of three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the Roman presence in Hispania. The other two were the Second Celtiberian War and the Numantine War. Hispania was the name the Romans gave to the Iberian Peninsula. The peninsula was inhabited by various ethnic groups and numerous tribes. The Celtiberians were a confederation of five tribes, which lived in a large area of east central Hispania, to the west of Hispania Citerior. The eastern part of their territory shared a stretch of the border of this Roman province. The Celtiberian tribes were the Pellendones, the Arevaci, the Lusones, the Titti and the Belli.
The Carpetani were one of the Celtic pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, akin to the Celtiberians, dwelling in the central part of the meseta - the high central upland plain of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Olcades were an ancient stock-raising pre-Roman people from Hispania, who lived to the west of the Turboletae in the southeastern fringe of the Iberian system mountains.
The Berones were a pre-Roman Celtic people of ancient Spain, although they were not part of the Celtiberians, they lived north of the Celtiberians 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 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. The area comprises 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 Uraci or Duraci were a little-known Celtic people of pre-Roman Iberia who dwelt to the east of the Vaccaei and the Carpetani, occupying the southern Soria, northern Guadalajara and western Zaragoza provinces since the 4th century BC.
This section of the timeline of Hispania concerns Spanish and Portuguese history events from the Carthaginian conquests to before the barbarian invasions.
The Celtiberian confederacy was a tribal federation formed around the mid-3rd century BC, by the Arevaci, Lusones, Belli and Titii, with the Arevacian city of Numantia as the federal capital.