Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Where did the Celtiberians live?
Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula lying between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebro river. This language is directly attested in nearly 200 inscriptions dated to the 2nd century BC and the 1st century BC, mainly in Celtiberian script, a direct adaptation of the northeastern Iberian script, but also in Latin alphabet. The longest extant Celtiberian inscriptions are those on three Botorrita plaques, bronze plaques from Botorrita near Zaragoza, dating to the early 1st century BC, labelled Botorrita I, III and IV (Botorrita II is in the Latin language). In the northwest was another Celtic language, Gallaecian (also known as Northwestern Hispano-Celtic), that was closely related to Celtiberian.
Gaulish or Gallic is the name given to the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul. According to Julius Caesar in his "Commentaries on the Gallic War", it was one of three languages in Gaul, the others being Aquitanian and Belgic. In Gallia Transalpina, a Roman province by the time of Caesar, Latin was the language spoken since at least the previous century. Gaulish is paraphyletically grouped with Celtiberian, Lepontic, and Galatian as Continental Celtic. The Lepontic language and the Galatian language are sometimes considered to be dialects of Gaulish.
Discontent among the subjugated Gauls prompted a major uprising in the winter of 54–53 BC, when the Eburones of north-eastern Gaul rose in arms under their leader Ambiorix. Fifteen Roman cohorts were wiped out at Atuatuca Tungrorum (modern Tongeren in Belgium) and a garrison commanded by Quintus Tullius Cicero narrowly survived after being relieved by Caesar in the nick of time. The rest of 53 BC was occupied with a punitive campaign against the Eburones and their allies, who were said to have been all but exterminated by the Romans.
At the time of the Roman Empire, about two thousand years ago, various tribes, which spoke Celtic dialects of the Insular Celtic group, were inhabiting the islands. The Romans expanded their civilisation to control southern Great Britain but were impeded in advancing any further, building Hadrian's Wall to mark the northern frontier of their empire in 122 AD. At that time, Ireland was populated by a people known as Hiberni, the northern third or so of Great Britain by a people known as Picts and the southern two thirds by Britons.
Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century AD. Initially, their arrival seems to have been at the invitation of the Britons as mercenaries to repulse incursions by the Hiberni and Picts. In time, Anglo-Saxon demands on the British became so great that they came to culturally dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain, though recent genetic evidence suggests Britons still formed the bulk of the population. This dominance creating what is now England and leaving culturally British enclaves only in the north of what is now England, in Cornwall and what is now known as Wales. Ireland had been unaffected by the Romans except, significantly, for being Christianised—traditionally by the Romano-Briton, Saint Patrick. As Europe, including Britain, descended into turmoil following the collapse of Roman civilisation, an era known as the Dark Ages, Ireland entered a golden age and responded with missions (first to Great Britain and then to the continent), the founding of monasteries and universities. These were later joined by Anglo-Saxon missions of a similar nature.
Naxos was the first Greek colony in Sicily, settled in 734 BC on Sicel land. From that date Sicels had been the victims of Greek aggression. Leontini was the next colony, settled by Naxos, where the Greeks promised to live in peace with the Sicels. The Greeks at Leontini got colonists from Megara (who later founded Megara Hyblea) to drive the Sicels out of that city. On the other hand, Sicels also lived on friendly terms with Greeks, Hippocrates had hired Sicel mercenaries to fight both Sicels and Greeks and slaughtered the Sicel mercenaries when convenient, Sicels and Greeks of Camarina also banded together to fight Syracuse, and much of Greek culture was absorbed by Sicel communities. The Greeks joined hands to defeat Ducetius, a Sicel warlord who tried to create a united Sicel state in the 440s. Dionysius had attacked the Sicels towns of Herbessus, Henna and Herbita prior to starting the war with Carthage, so the Sicels had cause to hate him.
Latin is a member of the broad family of Italic languages. Its alphabet, the Latin alphabet, emerged from the Old Italic alphabets, which in turn were derived from the Greek and Phoenician scripts. Historical Latin came from the prehistoric language of the Latium region, specifically around the River Tiber, where Roman civilization first developed. How and when Latin came to be spoken by the Romans are questions that have long been debated. Various influences on Latin of Celtic dialects in northern Italy, the non-Indo-European Etruscan language in Central Italy, and the Greek of southern Italy have been detected, but when these influences entered the native Latin is not known for certain.
The island of Sicily contained the Elymians, Sikans and the Siculi living in respective communities before the Phoenicians had started their colonisation of Sicily after 800 BC. The Phoenicians had initially planted trading posts all over the coast of Sicily, but never penetrated far inland and ultimately withdrew without resistance to the western half of the island (concentrating in the cities of Motya, Panormus and Soluntum) with the arrival of the Greek colonists after 750. The Ionian Greeks took the lead in colonising Sicily among Greeks when they planted Naxos in 735, and spread north and west along the island coast until the city of Himera was founded in around 648, bordering the Phoenician territory of Soluntum. The Dorian Greeks founded Syracuse in 734 and spread south then west along the coastline until Selinus was founded around 654, bordering the Phoenician territory of Motya. While the Ionian Greeks on the whole had friendly relations with the native Sicilians and the Phoenicians, the Dorian Greeks were comparably more aggressive, pushing inland at the expense of the natives to expand the Greek domain. Conflicts among the Greeks colonies and between the natives and Greeks erupted, but these were localised mostly affairs without any decisive results or intervention from non Sicilian powers. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians traded with everyone in Sicily and on the whole all the island colonies prospered. This prosperity caused some of the Greek cities to start to expand their territories again, ultimately leading to the events known as "Sicilian Wars".
Finally in Veneto to the northeast, we have Venetic, the language of the Eastern culture of the Iron Age in the Italian Peninsula. There seems to be no doubt of its relationship with Indo-European because it has similarities with the Germanic and Italic languages, although some linguists see it as a separate group within the Indo-European languages. There are more than 200 short inscriptions that were written from the sixth century BC until the first century BC, there being toponymic evidence linking the territory of the "Veneti" with the "Liburnian" tribes of the Adriatic in the Balkans.
The Italic peoples came from the north to the Italian Peninsula in the 2nd millennium BC. There were two waves - an earlier one (the Latino-Faliscan languages, including Sicel, which has gone far to the south) and later (the Osco-Umbrian languages). Previously, it was customary to identify the first wave with the Terramare culture, and the second one with the Proto-Villanovan culture; modern archaeologists point to more complex processes.
In 58 BC Julius Caesar launched the Gallic Wars and had conquered the whole of Gaul by 51 BC. He noted that the Gauls (Celtae) were one of the three primary peoples in the area, along with the Aquitanians and the Belgae. Caesar's motivation for the invasion seems to have been his need for gold to pay off his debts and for a successful military expedition to boost his political career. The people of Gaul could provide him with both. So much gold was looted from Gaul that after the war the price of gold fell by as much as 20%. While they were militarily just as brave as the Romans, the internal division between the Gallic tribes guaranteed an easy victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. After the annexation of Gaul a mixed Gallo-Roman culture began to emerge.
The first incursion of the Vikings in Iberia has been characterised as 'probably the most significant episode of the whole period of Viking activity in the South'. It is mentioned in "Annales Bertiniani", and dated August 844, when a group from a plundering expedition entered the Garonne and reached Galicia. Despite storm damage, some proceeded to South-West Spain. This account is consistent with several later, but independent sources in Latin and Arabic. In particular, the late ninth- or early tenth-century "Chronicle of Alfonso III" adds that after plundering a number of coastal villages they were ultimately repulsed in the vicinity of "Farum Brecantium" (i.e. the Tower of Hercules). Ramiro I of Asturias gathered troops in Galicia and Asturia for the counter-attack. After the Asturian victory, the Vikings continued their voyage in direction of Lisbon. While some authors consider that the reliability of this chronicle is open to doubt, others consider that other local chronicles confirm the arrival of the Norsemen.
This unruly mob began to attack and pillage outside the city in search of supplies and food, prompting Alexios to hurriedly ferry the gathering across the Bosporus one week later. After crossing into Asia Minor, the crusaders split up and began to pillage the countryside, wandering into Seljuq territory around Nicaea. The greater experience of the Turks was overwhelming; and most of this group of the crusaders were massacred because of it. Some Italian and German crusaders were defeated and killed at Xerigordon at the end of August. Meanwhile, Walter and Peter's followers, who, although for the most part untrained in battle but led by about 50 knights, fought a battle against the Turks at Civetot in October. The Turkish archers destroyed the crusader army, and Walter was among the dead. Peter, who was absent in Constantinople at the time, later joined the main crusader army, along with the few survivors of Civetot.
King Roderic (Rodrigo) was killed while opposing this invasion, thus becoming the last Visigothic king of Iberia.
From the various Germanic groups who settled in Western Iberia, the Suebi left the strongest lasting cultural legacy in what is today Portugal, Galicia and Asturias.
The dominance of Latin among the literate elite may obscure the continuity of spoken languages, since all cultures within the Roman Empire were predominantly oral. In the West, Latin, referred to in its spoken form as Vulgar Latin, gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages that were related to it by a shared Indo-European origin. Commonalities in syntax and vocabulary facilitated the adoption of Latin.
British and African Romance—the forms of Vulgar Latin used in southeastern Britain and the Roman province of Africa, where it had been spoken by much of the urban population—disappeared in the Middle Ages (as did Pannonian Romance in what is now Hungary, and Moselle Romance in Germany). But the Germanic tribes that had penetrated Roman Italy, Gaul, and Hispania eventually adopted Latin/Romance and the remnants of the culture of ancient Rome alongside existing inhabitants of those regions, and so Latin remained the dominant language there. In part due to regional dialects of the Latin language and local environments, several languages evolved from it.
From the point of view of Proto-Indo-European, the Italic languages are fairly conservative. In phonology, the Italic languages are centum languages by merging the palatals with the velars (Latin "centum" has a /k/) but keeping the combined group separate from the labio-velars. In morphology, the Italic languages preserve six cases in the noun and the adjective (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, vocative) with traces of a seventh (locative), but the dual of both the noun and the verb has completely disappeared. From the position of both morphological innovations and uniquely shared lexical items, Italic shows the greatest similarities with Celtic and Germanic, with some of the shared lexical correspondences also being found in Baltic and Slavic.
Morphological, cytological and molecular studies confirm the European polecat is the sole ancestor of the ferret, thus disproving any connection with the steppe polecat, which was once thought to have contributed to the ferret's creation. Ferrets were first mentioned by Aristophanes in 450 BC and by Aristotle in 350 BC. Greek and Roman writers in the first century AD were the first to attest on the ferret's use in bolting rabbits from their burrows. The first accurate descriptions of ferrets come from Strabo during 200 AD, when ferrets were released onto the Balearic Islands to control rabbit populations. As the European rabbit is native to the Iberian Peninsula and northwest Africa, the European polecat likely was first domesticated in these regions.
Gaius Julius Caesar (13 July 100 BCE – 15 March 44 BCE), commonly known as Julius Caesar was a prominent general in the Roman army and a notable politician. He played a key role in transforming the flagging Roman Republic to the seemingly unstoppable Roman Empire. He was killed due to his Templar affiliations. Caesar gained his fame on military campaigns in Gaul, where he conquered what is present-day France, Germany, and Belgium. In 50 BCE, Caesar was called back to Rome, and he feared he might be prosecuted for insubordination and treason. Caesar brought one of his legions with him and started a civil war. During this conflict, Caesar was made Dictator of Rome. Roman Senators feared Caesar's in increasing military power, and also hated him due to the fact he was supported by the Templars. On March 15, 44 BCE, also known as the Ides of March, the Senators planned their strike. A group of Roman Senators, who were also Assassins, led by Brutus and Cassius, stabbed Caesar twenty-three times in the Roman Senate. The Senators thought that by ending Caesar's life, they had helped save Rome, but they actually put Rome in chaos. For the next thirteen years, civil war raged through the Roman Republic. The outcome was the birth of the Roman Empire, and the fall of the Egyptian Pharaohs.
The Italic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, originally spoken by Italic peoples. They include Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), as well as a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, South Picene, and possibly Venetic and Sicel.
In this sub-Roman Britain, as Anglo-Saxon culture spread across southern and eastern Britain and Gaelic through much of the north, the demonym "Briton" became restricted to the Brittonic-speaking inhabitants of what would later be called Wales, Cornwall, North West England (Cumbria), and parts of Scotland such as Strathearn, Morayshire, Aberdeenshire and Strathclyde. In addition the term was also applied to Brittany in what is today France and Britonia in north west Spain, both regions having been colonised by Britons in the 5th century fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasions. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island. The "Historia Brittonum" claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings, followed by the "Historia Regum Britanniae" which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England.
The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes. Rome's war against the Gallic tribes lasted from 58 BC to 50 BC and culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul (mainly present-day France and Belgium). While militarily just as strong as the Romans, the internal division between the Gallic tribes helped ease victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. The wars paved the way for Julius Caesar to become the sole ruler of the Roman Republic.
The Sidicini were mentioned for the first time in 343 BC, when the Samnites declared war on them. The Samnites sought to take Teano because of its position as a regional crossroad . The sidicini then sought the help of the Campanians. The Campanians sent an army to assist the Sidicini but were beaten in battle by the Samnites, the Samnites then seized the Tifata hills overlooking Capua (the main Campani city) and, having left a strong force to hold them, marched into the plain between the hills and Capua. There they defeated the Campanians in a second battle and drove them within their walls. At this point the Campanians decided to surrender themselves unconditionally into the power of Rome, following which the Romans felt compelled to intervene to protect their new subjects against further Samnite attacks.
Excavations at the Celtiberian strongholds "Kontebakom-Bel" Botorrita, "Sekaisa" Segeda, Tiermes complement the grave goods found in Celtiberian cemeteries, where aristocratic tombs of the 6th to 5th centuries BC give way to warrior tombs with a tendency from the 3rd century BC for weapons to disappear from grave goods, either indicating an increased urgency for their distribution among living fighters or, as Almagro-Gorbea and Lorrio think, the increased urbanization of Celtiberian society. Many late Celtiberian "oppida" are still occupied by modern towns, inhibiting archaeology.
In 154 BC, the Roman senate objected to the Belli town of Segeda building a circuit of walls, and declared war. At least three tribes of Celtiberians were involved in the war: the Titti, the Belli (towns of Segeda and Nertobriga) and the Averaci (towns of Numantia, Axinum and Ocilis). After some initial Celtiberian victories, the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus inflicted some defeats and made peace with the Celtiberians. The next consul, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, attacked the Vaccaei, a tribe living in the central Duero valley which was not at war with Rome. He did so without the authorisation of the senate, with the excuse that the Vaccaei had mistreated the Carpetani. The Second Celtiberian War overlapped with the Lusitanian War of 155–150 BC.
In 154 BC, the Roman senate objected to the Belli town of Segeda building a circuit of walls, and declared war. Thus, the Second Celtiberian War (154–152 BC) started. At least three tribes of Celtiberians were involved in the war: the Titti, the Belli (towns of Segeda and Nertobriga) and the Arevaci (towns of Numantia, Axinum and Ocilis). After some initial Celtiberian victories, the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus inflicted some defeats and made peace with the Celtiberians. The next consul, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, attacked the Vaccaei, a tribe living in the central Duero valley which was not at war with Rome. He did so without the authorisation of the senate, with the excuse that the Vaccaei had mistreated the Carpetani. The Second Celtiberian War overlapped with the Lusitanian War of (154–150 BC).
Appian wrote that this war broke out because Segeda (near Zaragoza), a powerful city of the Celtiberian tribe of the Belli, persuaded the people of some smaller towns to settle there and was building a circuit of walls seven kilometres long. It also forced the neighbouring Titti to join in. The Belli had agreed to the treaties Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus had made with tribes in Hispania at the end of the First Celtiberian War. Rome considered that Segeda was breaking the treaty. It forbade the building of the wall, demanded the tribute and the provision of a contingent for the Roman army in accordance with the stipulations of Gracchus' treaty. The Segedans replied that the treaty forbade the construction of new towns, but did not forbid the fortification existing ones. They also said that they had been subsequently released from the tribute and the military contingent by the Romans. This was true, but the senate argued that when it granted such exemptions it always specified that they were to continue only during its pleasure. The senate must have decided to withdraw the exemptions because it was worried about the development of Segeda into a powerful city in the land of the Celtiberians, who had a history of rebellions. Rome prepared for war.