Suessetani

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The Suessetani were a pre-Roman people of the northeast

Aquitanian tribe or people).[1]

Corbio was the capital of the Suessetani and an important fortified city, yet unlocated (maybe between Sangüesa and Sos del Rey Católico).[2][3]

Ethnic and linguistic affiliation

There is yet no definitive conclusion about their ethnic affiliation. They could have been an

Gallia (Gaul) in today's Soissons area. Suessiones tribe, that dwelt in the Marne river territory, had a city called Corbio (today's Corbeil), like the Suessetani. So there is an association between the root words suess- and corb- in these two tribes (Corbeil comes from the galo-Celtic Corbio ialo – Corbius field).[4][5]

It is not known when did they arrived in the region that they dwelt but some estimate that they arrived around 600 BCE, or maybe earlier, along with a belgic Celtic migration.[6]

The place names (

hydronyms) of their territory are clearly indo-European, probably Celtic or pre-Celtic indo-European. The place names are for example: Corbio, Viridunum (Berdún), Gordunum (Gordún), Navardunum (Navardún), Sekia/Segia, Setia, Gallicum, Forum Gallorum. The river names are Alba (today's Arba river), Gallicus river (Gállego). This seems to indicate that they spoke an indo-European language, maybe a Celtic one.[7][8]

Roman conquest

Titus Livius wrote about Marcus Porcius Cato's campaigns in Hispania. In his work he reports that the Suessetani were enemies of the Iacetani, because, on other things, Iacetani sacked the fields and crops of the Suessetani. Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder), knowing the bad relations between Suessetani and Iacetani, took this to Roman advantage and managed to gain their support for the Roman conquest of the Iacetani territory and their capital, Iaca (Jaca
), in 195 BCE.

So the Suessetani, at the beginning of the 2nd Century BCE, were Roman allies, but some years after they rebelled and resisted against

siege weapons and was destroyed after that siege.[9][10]

Assimilation by the Vascones

The Vascones, that dwelt to the northwest of the Suessetani, in alliance with the Romans and with Roman incentive, took advantage of the Suessetani defeat, they took Suessetani lands and assimilated most of them in the middle and the end of the 2nd century BCE. The Suessetani ceased to exist as a different tribe with his own identity. When later authors such as Strabo and Ptolemy wrote their works (in the 1st century BCE and 1st century CE), the Suessetani had already been assimilated by the Vascones, as they don't mention them. They describe the Suessetani former territory as a vasconian one.[11] Partially because of this, Suessetani are sometimes ignored as a different tribe or wrongly classified as a tribe of the Vascones or the Iberians.

See also

References

  1. ^ FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.
  2. ^ FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.
  3. ISBN 84-7481-736-6
  4. ^ FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.
  5. ISBN 84-7481-736-6
  6. ^ FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.
  7. ^ FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.
  8. ISBN 84-7481-736-6
  9. ^ FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.
  10. ISBN 84-7481-736-6
  11. ^ SAYAS, J.J. “El poblamiento romano en el área de los vascones”, Veleia 1, 1984, 289-310.

FATÁS, Guillermo. Sobre Suessetanos Y Sedetanos. Archivo Español de Arqueología 44.109-125.

FATÁS, Guillermo. Los Pirineos meridionales y la conquista romana (289-316) in Jürgen Untermann y Francisco Villar (Eds.). (1993). Lengua y Cultura en la Hispania Prerromana. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca.

ISBN 84-7481-736-6

SAYAS, J.J. “El poblamiento romano en el área de los vascones”, Veleia 1, 1984, 289-310.

External links
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