TheRaeti (/ˈriːtaɪ/REE-ty; spelling variants:Rhaeti,Rheti orRhaetii) were aconfederation ofAlpine tribes, whose language and culture were related to those of theEtruscans. Before the Roman conquest, they inhabited present-dayTyrol inAustria, easternSwitzerland and the Alpine regions of northeastern Italy. After the Roman conquest, the province ofRaetia was formed, which included parts of present-dayGermany south of theDanube.

The etymology of the nameRaeti is uncertain. The Roman province ofRaetia was named after these people.

Ancient sources characterise the Raeti as Etruscan people who were displaced from thePo valley by theGauls and took refuge in the valleys of the Alps. But it is likely that they were predominantlyindigenous Alpine people. Their language, the so-calledRaetian language, was probably related to Etruscan, but may not have derived from it.^[1] At least some of the Raeti tribes (those in northeastern Italy) probably continued to speak the Raetian language as late as the 3rd century AD. Others (those in Switzerland) were probablyCeltic-speaking by the era of the Roman emperorAugustus (ruled 30 BC – AD 14).

The Raeti were divided into numerous tribes, but only some of these are clearly identified in the ancient sources.

The Raeti tribes, together with those of their Celtic-speaking neighbours to the north, theVindelici, were subjugated by theImperial Roman army in 15 BC and their territories annexed to theRoman Empire. TheRoman province ofRaetia et Vindelicia was named after these two peoples. The Raeti tribes quickly became loyal subjects of the empire and contributed disproportionate numbers of recruits to theimperial Roman army'sauxiliary corps.

The origin of the nameRaeti is uncertain. It has similarities to theendonym of the Etruscans:Rasenna, the root of which appears to be Etruscanrasna "the people". However, it is unclear whether the Rhaetians had a similar endonym or ifRaeti is anexonym (a name used by outsiders to describe the Rhaetians).

The Roman geographerPliny the Elder, writing in AD 70, suggests that the people were named after "Raetus", a leader at the time of their supposed "expulsion" from the Po Valley.^[2] However, eponymous founders were a common, demonstrably fabricated, origin story. (The most famous illustration of this theory is the legend that theCity of Rome derives its name fromRomulus, its supposed founder, while if Romulus ever existed at all (which most scholars doubt), then it would be far more likely that he derived his own name from an existing place nameRoma, rather than vice versa.).

Virgil [70 BC-19 BC] in hisGeorgics II^[3] praises a person named 'Rhaetian' for the quality of wine grapes from the region. It is assumed from the context that he accounts it to a single person, and not the people in general. It would suggest that Virgil accounted Rhaetus to be the god-father of the Rhaetian people.

It has also been suggested that the name Raeti may be connected withReitia, a major goddess who was revered in northeast Italy and is attested in a number of inscriptions on votive tablets of theVeneti people. One Raetic votive tablet, from the same region, contains the wordreithus, which may refer to this deity.^[4]

The earliest mention of the Raeti in surviving ancient sources is in theHistories ofPolybius, written before 146 BC.^[5] The Raeti, according toPliny the Elder, wereEtruscans driven into the Alps from thePo Valley by invadingGauls.^[6] This account of Raeti origins is supported by theAugustan-era Roman historianLivy.^[7] If this historiography is correct, then the displacement from the Po valley would have taken place in the period 600–400 BC, when major migrations of Celtic tribes from Gaul resulted in the Celtisation of that entire region.^[8]

But the traditional "migration theory" espoused by classical authors and, until the 1960s, by most modern scholars, is no longer considered the only possible explanation for socio-linguistic change. It is just as likely that the Raeti, if they spoke an Etruscan-like language, were Alpine indigenes who had spoken it as long as, if not longer than, the Etruscans ofEtruria - especially if, as most scholars believe, Etruscan represents the pre-Indo-European base language of Italy and the Alps.^[9] Alternatively, if the Alpine indigenes previously spoke a language unrelated to Etruscan, they may have adopted Etruscan through processes other than mass immigration e.g. through cultural interchange with the Etruscans of the Po valley, or as a result of "elite-transfer" by an Etruscan elite that acquired political hegemony over the Alpine tribes.

The Raeti are believed by many scholars to have spoken, originally at least, theRaetian language, an extinct tongue known only from a series of inscriptions, written in a variant of theEtruscan alphabet. This tongue is commonly regarded by most philologists to be related to Etruscan, a non-Indo-European language which is best documented in the central Italian regions ofTuscany, northernLatium and westernUmbria, and also in other Italian regions ofEmilia-Romagna,Campania andLombardy. The language has been called "Raetian" by linguists because it is deduced to have been spoken by the Raeti based on various sources of evidence.

Even if Raetian was the ancestral language of the Raeti, there is considerable uncertainty as to how widely Raetian was spoken among the tribes by the time of Augustus (ruled 30 BC - AD 14). In the Alpine region as a whole, there is evidence that the non-Celtic elements had, by the time of Augustus, been assimilated significantly by the influx of Celtic tribes and had adopted Celtic speech.^[10] According toLivy, the "sound" of the Raeti's original Etruscan tongue (sonum linguae) had become corrupted as a result of inhabiting the Alps.^[11] This may indicate that at least some of the tribes lost their ancestral Raetic tongue to Celtic.Celticisation also finds support in the Roman practice of twinning the Raeti with their neighbours to the North, theVindelici, who are regarded by most historians to have beenCeltic- speakers. The territories of the two peoples were combined for administrative purposes from an early stage and eventually, under the emperorClaudius (ruled 41-54), as the province ofRaetia et Vindelicia. In addition, a pair of jointRaetorum et Vindelicorumauxiliary cohorts were established under Augustus.^[12]

Further support for the hypothesis that the northern Raeti tribes converted to Celtic speech before the Roman imperial era is provided by the distribution of Raetian inscriptions. These have been found mostly in northeastern Italy:South Tyrol,Trentino, and theVeneto region.^[13] The Raetic inscriptions indicate that Raetian survived as late as the 3rd century AD, suggesting the existence at that time of Raeti tribes, at least in northeast Italy, which had not converted to Celtic speech. In addition, the abundance of Celtic toponyms in the Rhaetian territory leads to the conclusion that, by the time of the Roman conquest, many of the Rhaetians were heavily Celticized.^[14]

During the centuries of Roman rule, the Raeti became predominantlyLatin-speakers. It has been suggested that a surviving relic of the Raeti's Latin speech is theRhaeto-Romance languages, which includes theLadin,Friulian andRomanssh languages. Romansch survives today in a few valleys of the Swiss cantonGrisons (most of which is todayGerman-speaking). However, a Raetian origin for Romansch is uncertain, as Rhaeto-Romance languages appear most closely related to theGallo-Romance group, strengthening the argument that at least some of the Raeti had adopted Celtic speech before Latinisation.

The evidence suggests that the original Roman district of Raetia et Vindelicia, as established under Augustus, had as its eastern border (with the province ofNoricum) the riverAenus (Inn) from its confluence with the Danube as far South as, and then by the riverIsarcus (Eisack). Its northern border with the "free" German tribes was defined by the course of the upper Danube. On the West, Raetia et Vindelicia included the whole ofLake Constance and the upper Rhine valley and then a long tract westwards along the upperRhone valley as far asLake Leman. To the South, its border with the Italianregiones (administrative districts) ofGallia Transpadana andVenetia et Histria was roughly similar to the northern border of present-day Italy.^[15]

The Vindelici were, according to Ptolemy, confined to the East of the riverLicca (Lech), while West of that river, upper Bavaria was inhabited by Raeti. A contrary view is that the whole region between the Danube and the Alps was occupied by Vindelici, with the Raeti confined to the Alps themselves.

The latter view accords with Strabo, who records that the territory occupied by the Raeti tribes stretched from the upper reaches of the riverRhine in northern Switzerland to as far south as the cities ofComo andVerona in northern Italy. The Raeti were bounded in the East by the CelticTaurisci ofNoricum and in the West by theHelvetii.^[16]

Although the ancient sources concur in ascribing an Etruscan origin to the Raeti, they are less clear as to precisely which tribes attested in the region known asRaetia could be classified as Raeti (and whether such a classification was based on geographical location or language or cultural factors). In addition, there are considerable discrepancies in the names of tribes given by the sources. Some locations of the tribes recorded are uncertain, although most have been established securely by placename and personal-name evidence.

Strabo names theLepontii,Camunni (who gave their name to theVal Camonica,Lombardy, Italy),Cotuantii andRucantii as Raeti tribes.^[17] Of these, the first two are listed with the same spelling in Augustus' inscription while the latter two are probably theCosuanetes and theRucinates respectively in Augustus.^[18] However, the inscription text appears to identify the Rucinates as one of the 4 tribes of the Vindelici recorded as conquered. (But it is possible that the Strabo'sRucantii were actually another tribe, theRugusci, in Augustus).

Against Strabo, Pliny considers the Lepontii as a Celtic tribe akin to theTaurisci and classifies theCamunni as a tribe of theEuganei people of northeast Italy, together with theTrumplini of the neighbouring valley,Val Trompia.^[19] However, neither of Pliny's comments is fatal to the identification of the Lepontii and Camunni as Raeti. The Lepontic language has been definitively classified as a distinctContinental Celtic language (e.g. Lejeune 1971, Koch 2008).^[20][21] As for the Euganei, their linguistic classification is uncertain due to scanty evidence. It is possible that their speech was also related to Etruscan, possibly a sub-group ofTyrsenian languages. Alternatively their language may have beenIndo-European, akin to that of their close neighbours, the Celts^[22] or theVeneti (whose language shares several similarities with Latin and the Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other IE languages, especially Germanic and Celtic).^[23][24]

In addition, it appears that "Raetia et Vindelicia" was also inhabited by a number of non-Raetic tribes. TheBreuni andGenauni are classified asIllyrian by Strabo, while a number of tribes in the region have plausible Celtic etymologies: e.g.Caturiges fromcatu- ("fight" or "warriors") andNantuates fromnantu- ("valley") respectively.^[25]

TheTropaeum Alpium inscription contains the names of 45 Alpine tribes. The Raetic tribes south of Meran were peacefully integrated into the Roman Empire, and therefore do not feature on the Tropaeum Alpium. TheTabula clesiana for instance mentions theAnauni,Sinduni andTulliasses. Taking those that did get named that inhabited the territories of Raetia et Vindelicia province andVenetia et Histriaregio of N. Italy, and eliminating those tribes considered probably Celtic by scholars (Medulli,Ucenni,Caturiges,Brigiani,Sogionti,Ceutrones,Uberi,Nantuates,Sedunes,Veragri),^[26] the following list of possible Raeti tribes results:

The Raeti, together with their probably Celtic neighbours to the North, theVindelici, were subdued by theRoman emperorAugustus' stepsons and senior military commandersTiberius andDrusus in a two-pronged campaign in 15 BC.^[29]

Until ca. AD 100, the region was garrisoned, on its western edge (atVindonissa from ca. AD 15), by at least oneRoman legion (probablylegio XIX until AD 9, when it was destroyed in theBattle of the Teutoburg Forest). In addition, Roman auxiliary forces andleves armaturae ("light troops", probably a local militia) were stationed there.^[30] But these forces were mainly for security against external threats, not internal unrest. Strabo wrote that the Alpine tribes as a whole adapted easily to Roman rule and had not rebelled in the 33 years that had elapsed since the initial conquest.^[31]

The Raeti (and the Vindelici) were obliged to pay taxes to Rome.^[32] However, their combined territory was initially organised not as a fullRoman province but a military district under aRoman equestrian officer, attested as "praefectus of the Raeti, Vindelici and the Poenine Valley".^[33] It was apparently not before emperorClaudius (ruled 41-54), that the district became a full province with the official name ofRaetia et Vindelicia (abbreviated to simplyRaetia in the later 1st century), while the Poenine Valley (Canton Valais, Switz.) was separated to join the province ofAlpes Graiae.^[34] Raetia was governed by an equestrianprocurator.^[35]

According to the epigraphic record, the earlyJulio-Claudian period of theRoman Empire (30 BC - AD 37) saw the formation of at least 10 auxiliary infantry regiments from the Raeti tribes (thecohortes Raetorum).^[36] This represents some 5,000 recruits, an enormous levy from sparsely-populated Alpine valleys. It suggests that the Raeti were strongly attracted to a career in the Roman military. (SeeAlpine regiments of the Roman army).

• Alpine regiments of the Roman army
• Raetia
• Raetic language
• Rhaeto-Romance languages

• Dio CassiusRoman History (ca. 130 AD)
• LivyAb urbe condita (ca. 20 AD)
• Pliny the ElderNaturalis Historia (ca. 70 AD)
• PolybiusThe Histories (Polybius) (ca. 160 BC)
• StraboGeographica (ca. 20 AD)
• VirgilGeorgics II (ca. 29 BC)

• A. Baruffi,Spirit of Rhaetia: The Call of the Holy Mountains (LiteraryJoint, Philadelphia, PA, 2020),ISBN 978-1-716-30027-1
• Alfoldy, Geza (1974):Noricum
• Cambridge Ancient History (1996): Vol X,The Augustan Empire
• 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (online)
• Cornell, T. J. (1995):The Beginnings of Rome
• Faliyeyev, Alexander (2007):Dictionary of Continental Celtic Placenames (online)
• Holder, Paul (1980):Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army
• Lejeune, M. (1988).Recueil des inscriptions gauloises: II.1 Textes gallo-étrusques. Textes gallo-latins sur pierre.Paris: CNRS.
• Ó Hógain, Dáithi (2006)The Celts
• Marchesini, Simona and Roncador, Rosa (2015):Monumanta Linguae Raeticae (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317717346_Monumenta_Linguae_Raeticae)
• Zavaroni, Adolfo (2001):Le Iscrizioni Retiche ("Raetic Inscriptions") (online)

• Raetic inscriptions Adolfo Zavaroni