Cantabri

Location of the Cantabri during the Cantabrian Wars

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.

Origins

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]

Location

The Cantabri inhabited the highlands of the northern Spanish Atlantic coast,^[5] 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. By the 1st century BC they comprised eleven or so tribes – Avarigines (es), Blendii (es), Camarici (or Tamarici), Concani, Coniaci/Conisci, Morecani, Noegi, Orgenomesci, Plentuisii, Salaeni, Vadinienses and Vellici/Velliques – 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 Villeca/Vellica (Monte Cildá (es) – Palencia), Bergida (Castro de Monte Bernorio (es) – Palencia) and Amaya/Amaia (Peña Amaya (es) – Burgos).

Religion

Cantabrian stele, carved in sandstone (1.70 m in diameter and 0.32 m thick)

Literary and epigraphic evidence confirms that, like their Gallaeci and Astures neighbours, the Cantabri were polytheistic, worshipping a vast and complex 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 an organized priestly class who performed elaborated rites, which included ritual steam baths, festive dances, oracles, divination, human and animal sacrifices. In this respect, Strabo^[6] mentions that the peoples of the north-west sacrificed horses to an unnamed God of War, and both Horace^[7] and Silius Italicus^[8] added that the Concani had the custom of drinking the horse’s blood at the ceremony.

Culture

Monument to the Cantabri people in Santander.

According to Pliny the Elder^[9] Cantabria also contained gold, silver, tin, lead and iron mines, as well as magnetite and amber, but little is known about them; Strabo^[10] also mentions salt extraction in mines, such as the ones existent around Cabezón de la Sal.

History

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.^[5] Indeed, Cantabri warriors were regarded as being tough and fiercest fighters,^[11] suitable for mercenary employment,^[12] but prone to banditry.^[13] The earliest references to them are found in the texts of ancient historians such as Livy^[14] and Polybius^[15] who mention Cantabrian mercenaries in Carthaginian service fighting at the Battle of the Metaurus in 207 BC. Another author, Cornelius Nepos,^[16] claims that the Cantabrian tribes first submitted to Rome upon Cato the Elder’s campaigns in Celtiberia in 195 BC,^[17] and later Cantabri warbands fought for the Vaccaei and Celtiberians in the Celtiberian Wars of the 2nd century BC. Such was their reputation 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.^[18][19]

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.^[20] 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 Publius Crassus, the son of Marcus Crassus serving under Julius Caesar.^[21]

Under the leadership of the chieftain Corocotta, the Cantabri’s own predatory raids on the Vaccaei, Turmodigi and Autrigones^[22] whose rich territories they coveted, according to Florus,^[23] coupled with their backing of a Vaccaei anti-Roman revolt in 29 BC, ultimately led to the outbreak of the First Cantabrian Wars, which resulted in their conquest and partial annihilation by Emperor Augustus.^[24] 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)^[25] 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.

Romanization

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 either, providing auxiliary troops (Auxilia) to the Roman Imperial army for decades and these troops 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 started to be Christianized and gradually assimilated, though they only became fully Latinised in their language and culture after the Muslim Conquest of Iberia in the 8th century.

See also

• Duchy of Cantabria
• Cantabria
• Cantabrian Wars
• Corocotta

Notes

References

• Almagro-Gorbea, Martín, Les Celtes dans la péninsule Ibérique, in Les Celtes, Éditions Stock, Paris (1997) ISBN 2-234-04844-3
• Lorrio, Alberto J., Los Celtíberos, Editorial Complutense, Alicante (1997) ISBN 84-7908-335-2
• Montenegro Duque, Ángel et alii, Historia de España 2 – colonizaciones y formacion de los pueblos prerromanos, Editorial Gredos, Madrid (1989) ISBN 84-249-1013-3
• Burillo Mozota, Francisco, Los Celtíberos – Etnias y Estados, Crítica, Grijalbo Mondadori, S.A., Barcelona (1998, revised edition 2007) ISBN 84-7423-891-9
• Kruta, Venceslas, Les Celtes, Histoire et Dictionnaire: Des origines à la Romanization et au Christianisme, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris (2000) ISBN 2-7028-6261-6

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cantabri". Encyclopædia Britannica 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 207 

Further reading

• González Echegaray, J., Las Guerras Cántabras, Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander (1999)
• Richardson, J. S. Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, 218–82 BC, Cambridge University Press (2004)
• Peralta Labrador, E., Los Cántabros antes de Roma, Biblioteca Archaeologica Hispana 5, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid (2000)
• Ruiz Zapatero, Gonzalo et alii, Los Celtas: Hispania y Europa, dirigido por Martín Almagro-Gorbea, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Editorial ACTAS, S.l., Madrid (1993)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Santander.

• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)

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