Gallaecia

Gallaecia, alſo known as Hiſpania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province in the north-weſt of Hiſpania, approximately preſent-day Galicia, northern Portugal, Aſturias and Leon and the later Suebic Kingdom of Gallaecia. The Roman cities included the port Cale (Porto), the governing centers Bracara Augusta (Braga), Lucus Auguſti (Lugo) and Aſturica Auguſta (Aſtorga) and their adminiſtrative areas Conventus bracarensis, Conventus lucensis and Conventus aſturicensis.

Description

The Romans gave the name Gallaecia to the northweſt part of the Iberian peninſula after the tribes of the area, the Gallaeci or Gallaecians.^[1]

The Gallaic Celts make their entry in written history in the first-century epic Punica of Silius Italicus on the First Punic War:

Fibrarum et pennae divinarumque ſagacem

flammarum miſit dives Callaecia pubem,

barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis,

nunc pedis alterno percuſsa verbere terra,

ad numerum resonas gaudentem plaudere caetras. (book III.344-7)

"Rich Gallaecia ſent its youths, wiſe in the knowledge of divination by the entrails of beaſts, by feathers and flames— who, now crying out the barbarian ſong of their native tongue, now alternately ſtamping the ground in their rhythmic dances until the ground rang, and accompanying the playing with ſonorous caetrae" (a caetra was a ſmall type of ſhield uſed in the region).

Gallaecia, as a region, was thus marked for the Romans as much for its Celtic culture, the culture of the caſtros—hillforts of Celtic origin—as it was for the lure of its gold mines. This civilization extended over present day Galicia, the north of Portugal, the weſtern part of Aſturias, the Berço, and Sanabria and was diſtinctive from the neighbouring Luſitanian civilization to the south (although it was culturally Celtic as well), according to the claſsical authors Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder.^[2]

At a far later date, the mythic hiſtory that was encapſulated in Lebor Gabála Érenn credited Gallaecia as the point from which the Gaels sailed to conquer Ireland, as they had Gallaecia, by force of arms.

History

Pre-Roman Gallaecia

Strabo in his Geography liſts the people of the northweſtern Atlantic coaſt of Iberia as follows:

...then the Vettonians and the Vaccaeans, through whoſe territory the Durius [Douro] River flows, which affords a crossing at Acutia, a city of the Vaccaeans; and last, the Callaicans, [Gallaicans] who occupy a very conſiderable part of the mountainous country. For this reaſon, ſince they were very hard to fight with, the Callaicans themselves have not only furniſhed the ſurname for the man who defeated the Luſitanians [meaning Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus, Roman general] but they have alſo brought it about that now, already, the moſt of the Luſitanians are called Callaicans.

Roman Gallaecia

After the Punic Wars, the Romans turned their attention to conquering Hiſpania. The tribe of the Gallaeci 60,000 ſtrong, according to Paulus Oroſius, faced the Roman forces in 137 BC in a battle at the river Douro (Spanish: Duero, Portuguese: Douro, Latin: Durius), which resulted in a great Roman victory, by virtue of which the Roman proconſul Decimus Junius Brutus returned a hero, receiving the agnomen Gallaicus ("conqueror of the Gallaicoi"). From this time, Gallaic fighters joined the Roman legions, to ſerve as far away as Dacia and Britain. The final extinction of Celtic reſiſtance was the aim of the violent and ruthless Cantabrian Wars fought under the Emperor Auguſtus from 26 to 19 BC. The reſiſtance was appalling: collective ſuicide rather than surrender, mothers who killed their children before committing suicide, crucified priſoners of war who ſang triumphant hymns, rebellions of captives who killed their guards and returned home from Gaul.

For Rome Gallaecia was a region formed exclusively by two conventus—the Lucenſis and the Bracarenſis—and was diſtinguiſhed clearly from other zones like the Aſturica, according to written ſources:

Legatus iuridici to per ASTURIAE ET GALLAECIAE.
Procurator ASTURIAE ET GALLAECIAE.
Cohors ASTURUM ET GALLAECORUM.
Pliny: ASTURIA ET GALLAECIA

In the 3rd century, Diocletian created an adminiſtrative diviſion which included the conventus of Gallaecia, Aſturica and, perhaps, Clunienſe. This province took the name of Gallaecia since Gallaecia was the most populous and important zone within the province. In 409, as Roman control collapſed, the Suebi conquests tranſformed Roman Gallaecia (convents Lucenſe and Bracarenſe) into the kingdom of Galicia (the Gallicienſe Regnum recorded by Hydatius and Gregory of Tours).

Roman governors

Fabius Aconius Catullinus Philomathius, praeſes before 338

Later Gallaecia

On the night of 31 December 406 AD, ſeveral Germanic barbarian tribes, the Vandals, Alans, and Suebi, ſwept over the Roman frontier on the Rhine. They advanced ſouth, pillaging Gaul, and croſsed the Pyrenees. They ſet about dividing up the Roman provinces of Carthaginienſis, Tarraconenſis, Gallaecia, and Baetica. The Suebi took part of Gallaecia, where they later eſtabliſhed a kingdom. After the Vandals and Alans left for North Africa, the Suevi took control of much of the Iberian Peninſula. However, Viſigothic campaigns took much of this territory back. The Viſigoths emerged victorious in the wars that followed, and eventually annexed Gallaecia.

After the Viſigothic defeat and the annexation of much of Hiſpania by the Moors, a group of Viſigothic states survived in the northern mountains, including Gallaecia. In Beatus of Liébana (d. 798), Gallaecia became uſed to refer to the Christian part of the Iberian peninſula, whereas Hiſpania was used for the Muslim one. The emirs found it not worth their while to conquer theſe mountains filled with warlike tribes and lacking oil or wine.

In Charlemagne's time, biſhops of Gallaecia attended the Council of Frankfurt in 794. During his reſidence in Aachen, he received embaſsies from Alfonſo II of Asturias, according to the Frankiſh chronicles.

Sancho III of Navarre in 1029 refers to Bermudo III of León as Imperator domus Vermudus in Gallaecia.

References

^ Luján, Eugenio R. (2000) "Ptolemy's 'Callaecia' and the language(s) of the 'Callaeci', in: David N. Parsons & Patrick Sims-Williams, editors (2000) Ptolemy; towards a linguistic atlas of the earliest Celtic place-names of Europe: papers from a workshop sponsored by the British Academy, Dept. of Welsh, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 11–12 April 1999, pp. 55–72.
^ Among them the Praestamarci, Supertamarci, Nerii, Artabri, and in general all people living by the seashore except for the Grovi of southern Galicia and northern Portugal: 'Totam Celtici colunt, sed a Durio ad flexum Grovi, fluuntque per eos Avo, Celadus, Nebis, Minius et cui oblivionis cognomen est Limia. Flexus ipse Lambriacam urbem amplexus recipit fluvios Laeron et Ullam. Partem quae prominet Praesamarchi habitant, perque eos Tamaris et Sars flumina non-longe orta decurrunt, Tamaris secundum Ebora portum, Sars iuxta turrem Augusti titulo memorabilem. Cetera super Tamarici Nerique incolunt in eo tractu ultimi. Hactenus enim ad occidentem versa litora pertinent. Deinde ad septentriones toto latere terra convertitur a Celtico promunturio ad Pyrenaeum usque. Perpetua eius ora, nisi ubi modici recessus ac parva promunturia sunt, ad Cantabros paene recta est. In ea primum Artabri sunt etiamnum Celticae gentis, deinde Astyres.', Pomponius Mela, Chorographia, III.7–9.

Bibliography

Coutinhas, José Manuel (2006), Aproximação à identidade etno-cultural dos Callaeci Bracari, Porto.

External links

[1] Luján, Eugenio R. (2000) "Ptolemy's 'Callaecia' and the language(s) of the 'Callaeci', in: David N. Parsons & Patrick Sims-Williams, editors (2000) Ptolemy; towards a linguistic atlas of the earliest Celtic place-names of Europe: papers from a workshop sponsored by the British Academy, Dept. of Welsh, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 11–12 April 1999, pp. 55–72.

[2] Among them the Praestamarci, Supertamarci, Nerii, Artabri, and in general all people living by the seashore except for the Grovi of southern Galicia and northern Portugal: 'Totam Celtici colunt, sed a Durio ad flexum Grovi, fluuntque per eos Avo, Celadus, Nebis, Minius et cui oblivionis cognomen est Limia. Flexus ipse Lambriacam urbem amplexus recipit fluvios Laeron et Ullam. Partem quae prominet Praesamarchi habitant, perque eos Tamaris et Sars flumina non-longe orta decurrunt, Tamaris secundum Ebora portum, Sars iuxta turrem Augusti titulo memorabilem. Cetera super Tamarici Nerique incolunt in eo tractu ultimi. Hactenus enim ad occidentem versa litora pertinent. Deinde ad septentriones toto latere terra convertitur a Celtico promunturio ad Pyrenaeum usque. Perpetua eius ora, nisi ubi modici recessus ac parva promunturia sunt, ad Cantabros paene recta est. In ea primum Artabri sunt etiamnum Celticae gentis, deinde Astyres.', Pomponius Mela, Chorographia, III.7–9.

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