Gallia Aquitania
Provincia Gallia Aquitania Province des Gaules, Aquitaine | |||||||||||
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Burdigala) | |||||||||||
Historical era | Antiquity | ||||||||||
• Established after the Gallic Wars | 27 BC | ||||||||||
• Visigoth conquest | 5th century | ||||||||||
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Today part of | France |
Gallia Aquitania (
Tribes of Aquitania
Fourteen
The name Gallia Comata was often used to designate the three provinces of Farther Gaul, viz. Gallia Lugdunensis, Gallia Belgica, and Aquitania, literally meaning "long-haired Gaul", as opposed to Gallia Bracata "trousered Gaul", a term derived from bracae ("breeches", the native costume of the northern "barbarians") for Gallia Narbonensis.
Most of the Atlantic coast of the Aquitani was sandy and thin-soiled; it grew millet, but was unproductive with respect to other products. Along this coast was also the gulf held by the Tarbelli; in their land, gold mines were abundant. Large quantities of gold could be mined with a minimum of refinement. The interior and mountainous country in this region had better soil. The Petrocorii and the Bituriges Cubi had fine ironworks; the Cadurci had linen factories; the Ruteni and the Gabales had silver mines.[citation needed]
According to Strabo, the Aquitani were a wealthy people. Luerius, the King of the Arverni and the father of Bituitus who warred against Maximus Aemilianus and Dometius, is said to have been so exceptionally rich and extravagant that he once rode on a carriage through a plain, scattering gold and silver coins here and there.[3]
The Romans called the tribal groups
Aquitania was inhabited by the following tribes: Ambilatri, Anagnutes,
Gallia Aquitania and Rome
, still recalling the Roman name.The main struggle (58–50 BC) against the Romans came against Julius Caesar under Vercingetorix at Battle of Gergovia (a city of the Arverni) and at the Battle of Alesia (a city of the Mandubii). The Gaulish commander was captured at the siege of Alesia and the war ended. Caesar seized the remainder of Gaul, justifying his conquest by playing on Roman memories of savage attacks over the Alps by Celts and Germans. Italy was now to be defended from the Rhine.[3]
Caesar named Aquitania the triangle shaped territory between the Ocean, the Pyrenees and the
More so than Caesar, Strabo insists that the primeval Aquitani differ from the other Gauls not just in language, institutions and laws ("lingua institutis legibusque discrepantes") but in body make-up too, deeming them closer to the Iberians.[10] The administrative boundaries set up by Augustus comprising both proper Celtic tribes and primeval Aquitani remained unaltered until Diocletian's new administrative reorganization (see below).
The Arverni often warred against the Romans with as many as two to four hundred thousand men. Two hundred thousand fought against Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus and against Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. The Arverni not only had extended their empire as far as Narbo and the boundaries of Massiliotis, but they were also masters of the tribes as far as the Pyrenees, and as far as the ocean and the Rhenus (Rhine).
Late Roman Empire and the Visigoths
Early Roman Gaul came to an end late in the 3rd century. External pressures exacerbated internal weaknesses, and neglect of the Rhine frontier resulted in barbarian invasions and civil war. For a while Gaul, including Spain and Britain, was governed by a separate line of emperors (beginning with
In the early 5th century, Aquitania was invaded by the Germanic
From 602, an independent
Known governors
- Quintus Julius Cordus[13] AD 69
- Gnaeus Julius Agricola 74-76
- Marcus Cornelius Nigrinus Curiatius Maternus 80-83
- Senecio Memmius Afer 94-96
- [Lucius Valerius Propinquus?] Grani[us ...?] Grattius [Cerealis?] Geminius R[estitutus?] 123-125
- Salvius Valens[14]
- Quintus Caecilius Marcellus Dentilianus c. 138
- Titus Prifernius Paetus Rosianus Geminus[15] 142-145
- Quintus Cecilius Marcellus Dentillianus 146-149
- [...] Licianus
- Fidus 150s[14]
- Marcus Censorius Paullus ?157-?160
- Publius Flavius Pudens Pomponianus second half second century[16]
- Lucius Julius Julianus during the reign of Caracalla[17]
- Marcus Juventius Secundus Rixa Postumius Pansa Valerianus Severus early third century.[17]
References
- ^ Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879). "Aquitania". A Latin Dictionary. Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University.
- ^ a b c John Frederick Drinkwater (1998). "Gaul (Transalpine)". The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. Ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. Oxford University Press. Oxford Reference Online.
- ^ a b c Strabo: The Geography, The Aquitani.
- ^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Bk. 4.
- ^ Caesar, Commentaria de bello gallico, I 1. See C.B. Krebs (2006), "Imaginary Geography in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum," AJP 127: 111-36.
- ISBN 84-7148-136-7.
- ^ Matthew Bunson (1994). Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Facts on File, New York. p. 169.
- ^ The Histories of Appian, The Civil Wars
- ^ Livius.org, Provinces (Roman) Archived 2016-12-26 at the Wayback Machine.
- ISBN 84-7148-136-7.
- ^ P. Heather. (1996). The Goths, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
- ^ H. Sivan. (1987). "On Foederati, Hospitalitas, and the Settlement of the Goths in AD 418", American Journal of Philology 108 (4), 759-772.
- ^ Unless otherwise stated, the names of the governors from 69 to 138 are taken from Werner Eck, "Jahres- und Provinzialfasten der senatorischen Statthalter von 69/70 bis 138/139", Chiron, 12 (1982), pp. 281-362; 13 (1983), pp. 147-237
- ^ a b Ronald Syme, "A Lost Legate of Aquitania", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 79 (1988), pp. 181-187
- ^ Unless otherwise stated, the names of the proconsular governors from 141 to 177 are taken from Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antoninen (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1977), pp. 252f
- ^ Paul Leunissen, Konsuln und Konsulare in der Zeit von Commodus bis Severus Alexander (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1989), pp. 204f
- ^ a b Leunissen, Konsuln und Konsulare, p. 283