Vindelicia

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In the pre-Roman geography of Europe, Vindelicia simply identifies the country inhabited by the Vindelici, a region bounded on the north by the Danube and (later) the Hadrian's Limes Germanicus, on the east by the Oenus (Inn), on the south by Raetia and on the west by the territory of the Helvetii. It thus corresponded to the northeast portion of Switzerland, the southeast of Baden, and the south of Württemberg and Bavaria. Its chief town was refounded by the Romans as Augusta Vindelicorum ("Augusta of the Vindelici", or Augsburg).

The material culture of its inhabitants the Vindelici was La Tène. Whether the Vindelici spoke a Celtic (Gaulish) or Germanic language, is not secure; a possible etymology of their name includes an element vind- cognate to Irish find- "white" (compare Ginevra).^[1] Together with the neighboring tribes they were subjugated by Tiberius in 15 BC. The Augustan inscription of 12 BC mentions four tribes of the Vindelici among the defeated.

Towards the end of the first century AD, this region of the Vindelici was included in the province of Raetia. Horace alluded to them in his fourth book of Odes (iv.14), describing the eagle's first flight, a long metaphor that reveals itself at last as a compliment to Drusus:

videre Raeti bella sub Alpibus

Drusum gerentem Vindelici^[2]

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