Vaccaei

Vaccaei settlement area

Iberian Peninsula in the 3rd century BC Chr.

The Vaccaei , sometimes also Vaccäer (Spanish: Vacceos ), were an ancient, agricultural Celtic tribe in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula .

Settlement area

The settlement area of ​​the Vaccaei comprised large parts of the old Castilian plateau ( Meseta Central ) along the Duero valley. Their neighbors west and northwest were the Asturians , the Cantabrians settled in the north, the Turmodigers in the northeast, the Celtiberian Arevacians in the southeast and the Vettons in the south . Claudius Ptolemy and others name cities such as Pallantia ( Palencia ), Ocalam ( Zamora ), Helmantica / Salmantica ( Salamanca ), Arbucala ( Toro ), Pincia or Pintia ( Padilla de Duero ), Intercantia ( Paredes de Nava ), Cauca ( Coca ), Septimanca ( Simancas ), Rauda ( Roa ), Dessobriga (Oserna) or the not yet localized Autraca or Austraca .

history

Iron shield with niello inlays from Padilla de Duero ( Peñafiel municipality ); 4th century BC Chr.

The Vacceans were probably in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Celts who immigrated from Central Europe and spoke - like the neighboring Celtic and Celtiberian tribal groups - a Hispano-Celtic language ; even in their culture they hardly differed from one another. In the 30s of the 3rd century BC Parts of their settlement area came under Carthaginian influence at times . During the conquest of the north and north-west of the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. BC (see Celtiberian War ), a sideline or aftermath of the Punic Wars , they fought alongside their neighbors against the Roman invaders.

Like all Celtic peoples, they knew how to forge iron; Diodorus reports that the Celts and Celtiberians were excellent warriors who fought both on horseback and on foot.

art

Sometimes the stone so-called 'Iberian bulls' ( verracos ) are associated with the Vaccaei , but most of them have been found outside of their (still disputed) settlement area. Research into the pre-Roman cultures of the Iberian Peninsula is far from complete.

literature

• Francisco Diego Santos: The integration of north and north-west Spain as a Roman province in the imperial politics of Augustus . In Wolfgang Haase, Hildegard Temporini (Hrsg.): Rise and decline of the Roman world . Volume 3, De Gruyter, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-11-005838-3 , pp. 523-571 [ limited online version in the Google book search]
• Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. The Celts: A History. Collins Press, Cork 2002, p. 75, ISBN 0-85115-923-0 . [1]

Web links

Commons : Pre-Roman-Iberian Art  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Vaccaei, settlement area - map + info (Spanish)
• Vaccaei - Video (Spanish)