Gallia Aquitania

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For other uses, see Aquitania

Gallia Aquitania as a province of The Roman Empire around 120.

The Roman Province of Gallia Aquitania around 58 BC.

Gallia Aquitania was a province of the Roman Empire, located in present-day southwest France and bordered by the provinces of Gallia Lugdunensis, Gallia Narbonensis, and Hispania Tarraconensis.

Under Augustus, Gallia Aquitania became an imperial province, under the command of a former praetor, and hosting no legions.

With the reorganization of the provinces by Diocletian, Gallia Aquitania was split into three provinces, Aquitania Prima, Aquitania Secunda, and Aquitania Tertia or Aquitania Novempopulana (modern Gascony), within the Diocesis Viennensis of the Praetorian Prefecture for Gauls.

In 418, Emperor Honorius rewarded his Visigothic federates by giving them land in Aquitania on which to settle. This was done probably under hospitalitas, the rules for billeting army soldiers (Heather 1996, Sivan 1987). The settlement formed the nucleus of the future Visigothic kingdom that would eventually expand across the Pyrenees and onto the peninsula.

[edit] References

"Provinces (Roman)" at livius.org
Heather, Peter, The Goths,Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1996
Sivan, Hagith, "On Foederati, Hospitalitas, and the Settlement of the Goths in A.D. 418", American Journal of Philology 108, no. 4, 1987, pp. 759-772