The Gallaeci or Callaeci were a Celtic people[1] who inhabited Gallaecia, the region roughly corresponding to what is now Galicia, North of Portugal and Western Asturias, through the Roman period. They spoke a Q-Celtic language related to Celtiberian, usually called Gallaic or Northwestern Hispano-Celtic,[2] and probably also Lusitanian or some other Indo-European languages.[3]
Archaeologically, they were the descents of local Atlantic Bronze Age peoples (1300–700 BC). During the Iron Age they received several influences, from Central and Western Europe (Hallstatt and, to a lesser extent, La Tène culture), and from the Mediterranean (Phoenicians and Carthaginians). The Gallaeci dwelt in hill forts (locally called castros), and the archaeological culture they developed is called "Castro culture" (Hill-forts culture). They were finally annexed by Caesar Augustus during the Cantabrian Wars, a war which initiated a period of assimilation into a Gallaecian-Roman culture.
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The fact that the Gallaeci did not adopt writing until the first contacts with the Roman Empire, makes the study of history previous to the first contacts with Romans impossible. However, early allusions to this people are present in ancient Greek and Latin authors previous to the conquest, and it allows the reconstruction of a few historical events of this people since the second century BC
Thanks to Silius Italicus, it's known that between the years 218 and 201 BC, during the Second Punic War, some Gallaecian troops were involved in the fight in the ranks of Carthaginian Hannibal against the Roman army of Scipio Africanus. Also Silius Italicus added a short description of the Gallaecian contingent and their curious military tactics:
[…] Fibrarum et pennae divinarumque sagacem flammarum misit dives Gallaecia pubem, barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis, nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra ad numerum resonas gaudentem plauder caetras […]
"Rich Gallaecia sent its youths, wise in the knowledge of divination by the entrails of beasts, by feathers and flames, now howling barbarian songs in the tongues of their homelands, now alternately stamping the ground in their rhythmic dances until the ground rang, and accompanying the playing with sonorous shields".
After Silius Italicus, Appian of Alexandria mentioned in his book Iberiké, the first military conflict known between Gallaeci and Romans. In it, Appian narrates the events that occurred during the Lusitanian War (155-139 BC), mentioning that this last year (139 BC), after being cheated by the Lusitanian chief (Viriatus) the Quintus Servilius Caepio's army devastated few Gallaecian and Vettonian regions. The attack on these Southern Gallaecian peoples, probably in the modern Alto Douro (modern North of Portugal), near the border with Vettones, had a character of punishment, due to the Gallaecian support to Lusitanians.
The Gallaecian life style was based in land occupation especially by fortified settlements that are know in Latin language as "castrum" (hillforts), being able to vary its size from a small village of less than one hectare (more common in the northern territory), and great forts with more than 10 hectares denominated oppida or "citadel," being these latters more common in the Southern half of their traditional settlement. This mode of inhabiting the territory-by hillforts was common throughout Europe during the Bronze Age and Iron, getting in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, the name of 'Castro culture" (Castrum culture) or "hillfort's culture", which alludes to this type of settlement before the Roman arrival. However, a important quantity of Gallaecian hillforts continued to be inhabited until the 8th century BC.
These fortified villages tended to be located in the hills, rocky promontories and peninsulas surrounded on the sea, it improved its visibility, advocacy and the domain over territory. The location of these settlements was also studied to a better control of natural resources used by its inhabitants. The Gallaecian hillforts and oppidas maintain a great homogeneity, presenting evident commonalities.
The Gallaecian political organization is not known with certainty, but it is very probable that they were divided into small independent states that comprised in its interior a great number of small forts, comanded these states by the figure of a local king, which the Romans called princeps as in other parts of Europe. Each Gallaecian considered himself also a member of the hillfort where lived (according to the most common interpretation of the reversed C of epigraphy later) and the state / people to whom they belonged, and that the Romans called populus, among all some of them left us their names: Arrotrebae, Albion, celtic praestamarici, lemavi, etc. .., just as the end of the eighteenth century, people in Galicia still are identified with the parish and the region.
Some Gallaecian tribes:
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The Romans named the entire region north of that river, where the Castro culture existed, in honour of the Castro people that settled in the area of Calle — the Callaeci, later the Roman Portus Calle, today's Porto.[4] Thus, a Roman province, known as Callaecia (Greek: Καλλαικία) or Gallaecia, was later created.
The names "Callaici" and "Calle" are the origin of today's: Gaia, Galicia, and the "Gal" root in "Portugal", among many other placenames in the region.
Gallaecian or Gallaic was a Q-Celtic language or group of languages or dialects, closely related to Celtiberian, spoken at the beginning of our era in the north-western quarter of the Iberian Peninsula, more specifically between the west and north Atlantic coasts and an imaginary line running north-south and linking Oviedo and Mérida.[3][4] Just like it is the case for Illyrian or Ligurian languages, its corpus its composed by isolated words and short sentences contained in local Latin inscriptions, or glossed by classic authors, together with a considerable number of names – anthroponyms, ethnonyms, theonyms, toponyms – contained in inscriptions, or surviving up to date as place, river or mountain names. Besides, many of the isolated words of Celtic origin preserved in the local Romance languages could have been inherited from these Q-Celtic dialects.
Through the Galician-Roman inscriptions, is known part of the great pantheon of Galician deities , sharing part not only by other Celtic peoples or celtizados Peninsula, such as Astur-especially the more Western-or Lusitanian, but also by roosters or Britons among others. This will highlight the following: