Vettones

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Location of the Vettones in Hispania
Altar of sacrifices at the Castro of Ulaca

The Vettones (Greek: Ouettones) were an Iron Age pre-Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula.[1][2]

Origins

Lujan (2007) concludes that some of the names of the Vettones show clearly

western Hispano-Celtic features.[3] A Celtiberian origin has also been claimed.[1] Organized since the 3rd Century BC, the Vettones formed a tribal confederacy of undetermined strength. Even though their tribes' names are obscure, the study of local epigraphic evidence has identified the Calontienses, Coerenses, Caluri, Bletonesii[4][5] and Seanoci,[6]
but the others remain unknown.

Culture

Castro of Yecla la Vieja, stone walls

A predominately horse-

archeology has identified them with the local 2nd Iron Age ‘Cogotas II’ Culture, also known as the ‘Culture of the Verracos’ (verracos de piedra), named after the crude granite sculptures representing pigs, wild boars and bulls that still dot their former region. These are one of their most notable enduring legacies today, the other possibly being the game of Calva
, which dates to the time of their influence. The
Greek pottery – which attest the strong contacts with the Pellendones of the eastern meseta
, the Iberian south and the Mediterranean.

Location

Location of the Vettones' cities

The Vettones lived in the western part of the

Ledesma, Salamanca).[9][10] Other probable Vettonian towns were Tamusia (Villasviejas de Tamuja, near Botija, Cáceres; Celtiberian-type mint: Tamusiensi), Ocelon / Ocelum (Castelo Branco), Cottaeobriga (Almeida) and Lancia (Serra d’Opa
).

History

Vetton verraco in Villanueva del Campillo (Castile and León, Spain)

Traditional allies of the

Baetica, Carpetania, the Cyneticum and the failed incursion on the North African town of Ocilis (modern Asilah, Morocco) in 153 BC.[12][13]

Although technically incorporated around 134-133 BC into

Propraetor Julius Caesar in 61 BC, they later rose in support of Pompey's faction and fought at the battle of Munda (Montilla – Córdoba) in Baetica.[15]

Romanization

In the 1st Century BC, the Romans began to establish military colonies throughout Vettonia, first at Kaisarobriga or Caesarobriga (Talavera de la Reina – Toledo) and Norba Caesarina (near Cáceres), latter followed by Metellinum (Medellín), and in around 27-13 BC the Vettones were aggregated to the newly created Roman province of Lusitania with Emerita Augusta (Mérida) as the capital of the new province.[16]

Despite their progressive assimilation into the Roman world, the Vettones managed to retain their martial traditions, which enabled them to provide the Roman Army with an auxiliary cavalry unit (

Ala), the Ala Hispanorum Vettonum Civium Romanorum, which participated in Emperor Claudius' invasion of Britain in AD 43–60.[17]

Namesake

The Vettones are not to be confused with the Vettonenses, inhabitants of Vettona (today's Bettona) in Umbria.

Gallery

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Álvarez-Sanchís, Jesús R. (2005). "Oppida and Celtic society in western Spain". e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Vol. 6 (The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula).
  2. ^ Cremin, The Celts in Europe (1992), p. 57.
  3. ISBN 978-1-84217-475-3
    .
  4. ^ Conrad Cichorius, Römische Studien (Berlin, 1922).
  5. ^ Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanes, question 83.
  6. ^ Edmondson, "A criação de uma sociedade provincial romana" (2022), p. 36.
  7. ^ Silius Italicus, Punica, III, 378.
  8. ^ Ptolemy, Geographika, II, 5, 7.
  9. ^ Conrad Cichorius, Römische Studien (Berlin, 1922).
  10. ^ Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanes, question 83.
  11. ^ Silius Italicus, Punica, III, 378-414.
  12. ^ Appian, Iberiké, 57.
  13. ^ Livy, Periochae, 47.
  14. ^ Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain (2013), pp. 79; 144.
  15. ^ Caesar, De Bello Civili, I, 38, 1-4.
  16. ^ Garcia y Bellido, Antonio (1958). Las colonias romanas de la provincia Lusitania (PDF). Antigua: Historia y Arqueología de las civilizaciones. pp. 3, 4.
  17. ^ "El caballo en la sociedad celtibérica". 24 September 2015.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links
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