TheBletonesii were one of the pre-RomanCeltic peoples of theIberian Peninsula (the RomanHispania, modernSpain andPortugal), dwelling around the city ofBletisa orBletisama, located in modernLedesma in theprovince of Salamanca, Spain.[1] If the placement in Bletisa is correct, they lived near (or they were part of) theVettones.[citation needed] A hospitality token dated to AD 27 mentions the "senate and people of Bletisama," and the nameBletonesii as found inPlutarch may be equivalent to the Bletisamenses found in inscriptions.[2]
According to Plutarch,[3] the governing Romans learned that the Bletonesii had sacrificed a human to the gods, and called their leaders to account for this action. The leaders explained that the sacrifice was carried out in accordance with the law and custom of their people, a concept for which Plutarch uses the Greek wordnomos, equivalent to Romanmos. This explanation was accepted, since the Romans themselves had carried out human sacrifices in the earlierRepublic, but the practice was forbidden for the future. The incident may have occurred shortly before the Roman senate formally banned human sacrifice in 97 BC, and had some influence on deliberations.[4]
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