The Cantabri (Ancient Greek: Καντάβροι | Kantabroi) were a pre-Roman Celtic[1] people which lived in the northern Atlantic coastal region of ancient Hispania, from the 4th to late 1st centuries BC.
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A detailed analysis of place-names in ancient Cantabria shows a strong Celtic element along with an almost equally strong "Para-Celtic" element (both Indo-European) and thus disproves the idea of a substantial pre-Indo-European or Basque presence in the region.[2] This supports the earlier view that Jürgen Untermann considered the most plausible, coinciding with archaeological evidence put forward by Ruiz-Galvez in 1998 [3], that the Celtic settlement of the Iberian Peninsula was made by people who arrived via the Atlantic Ocean in an area between French Brittany and the mouth of the River Garona, finally settling along the Galician and Cantabrian coast.[4]
The Cantabri inhabited the highlands of the northern Spanish Atlantic coast, comprising the whole of modern Cantabria province, the eastern Asturias, the nearby mountainous regions of Castile-León and the northern fringes of Palencia and Burgos provinces. They comprised eleven or so tribes whose tribal names betray Ligurian, Aquitanian, Indo-Aryan, Celtiberian and Gallic affiliation – the Avarigines, Blendii, Plentusii, Camarici (or Tamarici), Concani, Coniaci, Moroecani, Noegi, Orgenomesci, Salaeni, Vadinienses and the Velliques.
By the 1st century BC they had gathered into a tribal confederacy with the town of Aracillum (Castro de Espina del Gallego, Sierra del Escudo – Cantabria), located at the strategic Besaya river valley, as their political seat. Other important Cantabrian strongholds included Noega (Castro de la Campa Torres, Gijón – Asturias), Villeca/Vellica (Monte Cildá? – Palencia), Bergida (Castro de Monte Bernório? – Palencia) and Amaya/Amaia (Peña Amaya – Burgos).
Literary and ephigraphic evidence confirms that, like their Gallaeci and Astures neighbours’, the Cantabri were polytheistic, worshipping a complex, vast pantheon of male and female Indo-European deities in sacred oak or pine woods, mountains, water-courses and small rural sanctuaries.
Druidism does not appear to have been practiced by the Cantabri, though there is enough evidence for the existence of a organized priestly class who performed elaborated rites, which included ritual steam baths, festive dances, oracles, divination, human and animal sacrifices. To this respect, Strabo[5] mentions that the peoples of the north-west sacrificed horses to an unnamed God of War, and both Horace[6] and Silius Italicus[7] added that the Concani had the custom of drinking the horse’s blood at the ceremony.
According to Pliny the Elder[8] Cantabria also contained gold, silver, tin, lead and iron mines, as well as magnetite and amber, but little is known about them; Strabo[9] also mentions salt extraction in mines, such as the ones existent around Cabezón de la Sal.
Regarded as savage and untamable mountaineers, the Cantabri long defied the Roman Legions and made a name for themselves for their independent spirit and freedom. The earliest references to them are found in the texts of ancient historians such as Livy[10] and Polybius[11] who mention Cantabrian mercenaries in Carthaginian service fighting at the battle of Metaurus in 207 BC. Another author, Cornelius Nepos,[12] claims that the Cantabrian tribes first submitted to Rome upon Cato the elder’s campaigns in Celtiberia in 195 BC,[13] and later Cantabri warbands fought for the Vaccaei and Celtiberians in the Celtiberian Wars of the 2nd century BC. Such was their reputation as fiercest fighters that when a battered roman army under Consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus was besieging Numantia in 137 BC, the rumour of the approach of a large combined Cantabri-Vaccaei relief force was enough to cause the rout of 20,000 panic-stricken Roman legionaries, forcing Mancinus to surrender under humiliating peace terms.[14][15]
By the early 1st century BC however, the Cantabri began to play a double game by lending their services to individual Roman Generals on occasion but, at same time, supported rebellions within Roman Spanish provinces and carried out raids in times of unrest. This opportunistic policy led them to side with Pompey during the final phase of the Sertorian Wars (82–72 BC), and they continued to follow the Pompeian cause until the defeat of his Generals Afranius and Petreius at the battle of Ilerda (Lérida) in 49 BC.[16] Prior to that, the Cantabri had unsuccessfully intervened in the Gallic Wars by sending in 56 BC an army to help the Aquitani tribes of south-eastern Gaul against Julius Caesar’s Legate Publius Crassus.[17]
Under the leadership of the Cheiftain Corocotta, the Cantabri’s own predatory raids on the Vaccaei, Turmodigi and Autrigones [18]– whose rich territories they coveted, according to Florus[19] –, coupled by their backing to a Vaccaei anti-Roman revolt in 29 BC, ultimately led to the outbreak of the 1st Astur-Cantabrian war, which resulted in their conquest and partial annihilation by Emperor Augustus.[20] The remaining Cantabrian population and their tribal lands were absorbed into the newly created Transduriana Province.
Nevertheless, the harsh measures devised by Augustus and implemented by his General Marcus Vispanius Agrippa to pacify the province in the aftermath of the campaign only contributed to further instability in Cantabria. Near-constant tribal uprisings (including a serious slave revolt in 20 BC that quickly spread to neighbouring Asturias[21]) and guerrilla warfare continued to plague the Cantabrian lands until the early 1st century AD, when the region was granted a form of local self-rule upon being included in the new Hispania Tarraconensis province.
Although the Romans founded colonies and established military garrisons at Castra Legio Pisoraca (camp of Legio IIII Macedonica – Palencia), Octaviolca (near Valdeolea – Cantabria) and Iuliobriga (Retortillo – Reinosa), Cantabria never became fully romanized and its people preserved many aspects of Celtic language, religion and culture well into the roman period. The Cantabri did not lose their warrior skills though, providing auxiliary troops (Auxilia) to the Roman Imperial army for decades, which participated in the conquest of Britain by Emperor Claudius in AD 43.
Like their Astures’ neighbours, the Cantabri re-emerged amid the chaos of the barbarian invasions of the late 4th century, only to be absorbed by the Visigoths in the early 6th century. Thenceforward the Cantabri were Christianized and gradually assimilated, though they only became fully latinised in their language and culture after the Muslim Conquest of Iberia in the early 8th century.