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TheCantabri (Ancient Greek:Καντάβροι,Kantabroi) orAncient Cantabrians were a pre-Roman people and large tribalfederation that lived in the northern coastal region of ancientIberia in the second half of the first millennium BC. These peoples and their territories were incorporated into the Roman Province ofHispania Tarraconensis in 19 BC, following theCantabrian Wars.
Cantabri is aLatinized form of a local name, presumably meaning "Highlanders" and deriving from thereconstructed root *cant- ("mountain") inAncient Ligurian.[1] During the High and Late Middle Ages, as well as Modern Period, the name refers usually to the Basques.
Cantabria, the land of the Cantabri, originally comprised much of the highlands of the northern Spanish Atlantic coast,[2] including the whole of modernCantabria province, easternAsturias, nearby mountainous regions ofCastile and León, the northern ofprovince of Palencia andprovince of Burgos and northeast ofprovince of León. Following theRomanconquest, this area was, however, much reduced, making up onlyCantabria and easternAsturias.[3]
The ancestors of the Cantabri were thought by the Romans to have migrated to theIberian Peninsula around the 4th Century BC,[4][5] and were said by them to be more mixed than most peninsular Celtic peoples. By the 1st century BC they comprised eleven or so tribes—Avarigines,Blendii [es],Camarici or Tamarici,Concani,Coniaci orConisci,Morecani,Noegi,Orgenomesci,Plentuisii,Salaeni,Vadinienses, andVellici orVelliques—gathered into a tribal confederacy with the town ofAracillum (Castro deEspina del Gallego,Sierra del Escudo – Cantabria), located at the strategicBesaya river valley, as their capital. Other important Cantabrian hillforts includedVilleca/Vellica (Monte Cildá [es] – Palencia),Bergida (Castro deMonte Bernorio – Palencia) andAmaya/Amaia (Peña Amaya [es] – Burgos).
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.[6] This supports the earlier view thatUntermann considered the most plausible, coinciding with archaeological evidence put forward byRuiz-Gálvez in 1998,[7] that the Celtic settlement of theIberian Peninsula was made by people who arrived via theAtlantic Ocean in an area betweenBrittany and the mouth of the RiverGaronne, finally settling along theGalician andCantabrian coast.[8]
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.[2] Indeed, Cantabri warriors were regarded as being tough and fierce fighters,[9] suitable formercenary employment,[10] but prone to banditry.[11]
The earliest references to them are found in the texts of ancient historians such asLivy[12] andPolybius,[13] who mention Cantabrian mercenaries inCarthaginian service in the late 3rd century BC. During the2nd Punic War, a Cantabrian mercenary contingent is mentioned inHannibal's army,[14] whilst another Cantabri mercenary band led by a chieftain namedLarus was recruited byMago and fought in Celtiberia against the propraetorMarcus Junius Silanus in 207 BC.[15] That same year, other Cantabrian mercenaries fought alongside theAstures' at theBattle of the Metaurus, and later Cantabrian war-bands fought for theVaccaei andCeltiberians in theCeltiberian Wars of the 2nd century BC.Another author,Cornelius Nepos,[16] claims that the Cantabrian tribes first submitted to Rome uponCato the Elder's campaigns inCeltiberia in 195 BC.[17] In any case, such was their reputation that when a battered Roman army underconsulGaius Hostilius Mancinus was besiegingNumantia in 137 BC, the rumor 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]
In the early 1st century BC, 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 the Cantabri to initially side withQuintus Sertorius during theSertorian Wars,[20] but at the final phase of the conflict they shifted their allegiance toPompey, continuing to follow the Pompeian cause until the defeat of their generals'Lucius Afranius andMarcus Petreius at thebattle of Ilerda (Lérida) in 49 BC.[21][22] In between, the Cantabri had unsuccessfully intervened in theGallic Wars by sending in 56 BC an allegedly 40,000-strong army to help theAquitani tribes ofsouth-westernGaul against the legatePublius Crassus, the son ofMarcus Crassus serving underJulius Caesar, who succeeded in overpowering and destroying the combined Cantabri-Aquitani force of 50,000 men in their own camp and slaughtered 38,000 of them.[23][24]
Under the leadership of the chieftainCorocotta, the Cantabri’s own predatory raids on theVaccaei,Turmodigi andAutrigones,[25] whose rich territories they coveted according toFlorus,[26] coupled with their backing of a Vaccaei anti-Roman revolt in 29 BC, ultimately led to the outbreak of the FirstCantabrian War (Bellum Cantabricum), which resulted in their conquest and partial annihilation by EmperorAugustus.[27] The remaining Cantabrian population and their tribal lands were absorbed into theHispania Citerior province.[28]
Nevertheless, the harsh measures devised by Augustus and implemented by hislegateMarcus Vipsanius 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 neighboring Asturias)[29] 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 newHispania Tarraconensis province.
Although the Romans founded colonies and established military garrisons atCastra Legio Pisoraca (camp ofLegio IIII Macedonica –Palencia),Octaviolca (nearValdeolea – Cantabria) andIuliobriga (Retortillo –Reinosa), Cantabria never became fully romanized and its people preserved many aspects ofCeltic language, religion and culture well into the Roman period. The Cantabri did not lose their warrior skills either, providing auxiliary troops (Auxilia) that served in two identified infantry cohorts (cohortes quingenariae peditatae –Cohors I Cantabrorum,Cohors II Cantabrorum) and in some cavalry units (Ala Hispanorum,Ala I Augusta,Ala Pannoniorum,Ala Batavorum orBaetasiorum,Cohors I Latobicorum) to the Roman Imperial army for decades, and these troops participated in EmperorClaudius'invasion of Britain in AD 43–60.
The Cantabri re-emerged,[30] as did their neighbors the Astures, amid the chaos of theMigration Period of the late 4th century. Thenceforward the Cantabri started to be Christianized and were violently crushed by theVisigoths in the 6th century.[31] However, Cantabria and the Cantabri are heard of many decades later in the context of the Visigoth wars against theVascones (late 7th century).[32] They only became fully Latinized in their language and culture after theMuslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century.[citation needed]
According toPliny the Elder[33] Cantabria also contained gold, silver, tin, lead and iron mines, as well as magnetite and amber, but little is known about them;Strabo also mentions salt extraction in mines, such as the ones existent aroundCabezón de la Sal,[citation needed] and describes apost-childbirth ritual in which the mother had to get up and the father go to bed, to be cared for by the mother.[34]
Literary and epigraphic evidence confirms that, like theirGallaeci andAstures neighbors, 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 ritualsteam baths, festive dances,oracles,divination, human and animal sacrifices. In this respect,Strabo[35] mentions that the peoples of the north-west sacrificed horses to an unnamedGod of War, and bothHorace[36] andSilius Italicus[37] added that the Concani had the custom of drinking the horse’s blood at the ceremony.
According to Leonard A. Curchin, the place-names from ancient Cantabria shows that a majority of names at the time comes from Celtic and other Indo-European languages. This shows that the people there, instead of the believed idea that they could have spoken a Pre-Indo European orBasque language, they spoke theCeltic language that was widely used in Iberia at the time. He also shows that Romanisation was weak in the region.[38]
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