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Gallaecia or Callaecia was the name of a Roman province that comprised a territory in the north-west of Hispania (approximately present-day Galicia in Spain, northern Portugal and Asturias). The most important city and historical capital of Callaecia was the town of Bracara Augusta, the modern Portuguese Braga.
Description
The Romans gave the name Gallaecia to the northwest part of the Iberian peninsula after the Gallaeci (Greek Kallaikoi) tribe (or Gallaecians), who had been their foremost enemy in the region. These Gallaeci lived in the Douro Valley with centre in Calle in the area that would become the Roman town of Portus Calle, today's Porto.
The wild Gallaecian Celts make their entry in written history in the 1st-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 plauder 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 caetras" (or gaethas, bagpipes, perhaps their earliest mention.)
Gallaecia, as a region, was thus marked for the Romans as much for its Celtic culture, the culture of the castros or castrexa—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 Bierzo, and Sanabria.
At a far later date, the mythic history that was encapsulated in Lebor Gabála Érenn credited Gallaecia as the point from which the Celts sailed to conquer Ireland, as they had Gallaecia, by force of arms.
History
After the Punic Wars, the Romans turned their attention to conquering Hispania. The tribe of the Gallaicoi 60,000 strong, according to Paulus Orosius, faced the Roman forces in 137 BC in a battle at the river Douro (Spanish Duero, 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, Gallaecian 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 Octavian from 26 to 19 BC. The resistance was appalling: collective suicide rather than before 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 Gallaecia (the Galliciense Regnum recorded by Hydatius and Gregory of Tours).
In Beatus of Liébana (d. 798), Gallaecia refers to the Christian part of the Iberian peninsula, whereas Hispania refers to the Muslim one. The emirs found it not worth their while to conquer these mountains filled with fighters and lacking oil or wine.
In Charlemagne's time, bishops of Gallaecia attended the Council of Frankfurt in 794. During his residence in Aquisgran, he received embassies of the kings of Gallaecia (796-798) according to the Frankish chronicles.
Sancho III of Navarre in 1029 refers to Vermudo III as Imperator domus Vermudus in Gallaecia.
See also
- Suebi kingdom of Gallaecia
- Timeline of Portuguese history
External links
- Alfonso Carbonell Lombardero, "The Gaels in Gallaecia"
- Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)
- Rutas Arqueolóxicas do Eixo Atlántico - Roteiro Arqueológico do Eixo Atlântico
Ancient Roman provinces | History of Galicia | History of Portugal | Galicia (Spain) | Celtic studies
"Gallaecia"