Autrigones

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Location of the tribe of the Autrigones.
·Red: pre-Indoeuropean tribes
·Blue: Celtic tribes

The Autrigones or Austrigones were a tribe described by the Roman historian Orosius as neighbours of the Gallaeci, and thus had their homeland in the northwest of Hispania. Their historical territory now lies split between the provinces of Cantabria (east of Ason river), Burgos (north-east), Biscay (west of Nervion-Ibaizabal river), Alava (west) and La Rioja (west).

Origins

The Autrigones were originally a Central European Celtic people who originally settled the Garonne valley area in Gaul in the 5th Century BC, were they mingled with the Belgae. Around the beginning of the 4th Century BC they and some of their Belgae vassals migrated to the Iberian Peninsula.

History

After crossing the Pyrenees, the Autrigones pushed through the mountainous Navarra region and the upper Ebro basin into the northern meseta. By the mid-4th Century BC they overrun the entire area corresponding today to the modern provinces of Santander and Burgos – which eventually became known as Autrigonia or Austrigonia – reaching the Pisuerga valley where they established their first capital Autraca or Austraca, located at the banks of the river Autra (Odra). They also gained an outlet to the sea by seizing from the Aquitanian-speaking Caristii further east the coastal highland region between the rivers Asón and Nervión, in the modern Vizcaya and Álava Basque provinces. However, their hold on this vast territory was meant to be short-lived; some time after 300 BC, they were driven out from southern Autrigonia (the western Burgos region) by the Turmodigi and the Vaccei, who seized the Autrigones’ early capital Autraca. Thrust back to their lands north of the Arlanzón valley during the 3rd Century BC, the Autrigones’ became in the 2nd-1st Centuries BC a tribal society similar to the peoples of the north-west.

Culture

The Autrigones were culturally related to the early Iron Age ‘Bernorio-Miraveche’ cultural group of northern Burgos and Palencia provinces. Additional archeological evidence indicates that by the 2nd Iron Age they came under the influence of the Celtiberians. By the 1st Century BC they were organized into a federation of autonomous mountain-top fortified towns (Civitates) on the mountain ranges of the upper Ebro. Pliny the Elder writes about the "ten states of the Autrigones" and says the only ones worth mentioning are Tritium Autrigonum (Monasterio de Rodilla) and Virovesca (possibly the present-day Briviesca).^[1] The other Autrigones' towns were Deobriga (near Miranda de Ebro), Uxama Barca (Osma de Valdegobia), Segisamunculum (Cerezo del Riotirón – Burgos), Antecuia (near Pancorbo), Vindeleia (Cubo de Bureba – Burgos), Salionca (Poza de la Sal) and the port of Portus Amanus/Flaviobriga (Castro Urdiales), protected by stout rammed earth walls of the "Numantine" type.

Romanization

They seem to have taken no part in the Celtiberian wars though as traditional allies of the Berones helped the latter in fighting off the roman general Sertorius' incursion into northern Celtiberia in 76 BC^[2], and remained independent until the late 1st Century BC, when the mounting pressure of Astures and Cantabri raids finally forced them to seek an alliance with Rome.

Bibliography

• Ángel Montenegro et alii, Historia de España 2 - colonizaciones y formación de los pueblos prerromanos (1200-218 a.C), Editorial Gredos, Madrid (1989)(ISBN 84-249-1386-8)
• Francisco Burillo Mozota, Los Celtíberos, etnias y estados, Crítica, Barcelona (1998).

See also

• Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

Notes