Germani (Oretania)

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

The Germani were an obscure pre-Roman ancient people of the Iberian Peninsula which settled around the 4th century BC in western Oretania, an ancient region corresponding to the south of Ciudad Real and the eastern tip of Badajoz provinces in eastern Andalusia.

The Iberian Peninsula in the 3rd century BC.

Origins

Roman authors believed that a people of mixed Belgic and Germanic descent had somehow migrated to the Iberia around the fourth Century BC.[1][2] They also included people of Celtiberian and native Iberian-Tartessian affiliation, and it has been suggested[by whom?] that their language was a form of Proto-Germanic.[citation needed]

Culture

File:Cerro Cabezas.png
Arqueological site of Cerro de las Cabezas in Valdepeñas

Archeological evidence retrieved from local Iron Age hillforts such as Alarcos (Ciudad Real) and Cerro de las Cabezas confirm that the material culture of the Germani did not differ from their southeastern Iberian neighbours nor the Celtiberians.

Location

Located to the west of the Olcades, they are credited of founding on western Oretania the towns of Mirobriga (near CapillaBadajoz), their Capital Orissia or Oria, also designated Oretum Germanorum (Cerro Dominguez, near Granátula de CalatravaCiudad Real), Gemella Germanorum (AlmagroCiudad Real), Lacurris (AlarcosCiudad Real), Sisapo (La Bienvenida, AlmodóvarCiudad Real) and Mentesa Oretana (Villanueva de la FuenteCiudad Real).[3]

History

Whether the Germani were clients or allies of the wealthy Iberian Oretani people during the 3rd Century BC remains unclear, though they certainly supported the powerful Oretanian King Orison at the battle of Helicen in 228 BC (Helike in the Greek sources, perhaps Elche de la Sierra, Elche or another oretanian city) against the Carthaginians under Hamilcar Barca.[4] Orison’s defeat in 227 BC[5] and its subsequent alliance with Carthage, however, caused a major friction between the Oretani and their Germani allies who continued to resist Punic expansion until being subdued by Hannibal Barca in 221 BC; the latter were certainly amongst the Oretani troops sent to Africa at the outbreak of the 2nd Punic War.

Romanization

The Germani appear to have adopted a less hostile stance towards Rome and in 156 BC they were included into Hispania Citerior Province, being gradually assimilated by the Oretani though retaining their Celto-Germanic cultural identity[citation needed] for several more centuries.

See also

Notes

  1. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, III, 29.
  2. Strabo, Geographikon, III, 4, 12.
  3. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, III, 19.
  4. Appian, Iberiké, 6.
  5. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, 25, 42.

References

  • 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 Motoza, Los Celtíberos – Etnias y Estados, Crítica, Grijalbo Mondadori, S.A., Barcelona (1998, revised edition 2007) ISBN 84-7423-891-9
  • Juan Pereira Siesto (coord.), Prehistoria y Protohistoria de la Meseta Sur (Castilla-La Mancha), Biblioteca Añil n.º 31, ALMUD, Ediciones de Castilla-La Mancha, Ciudad Real (2007) ISBN 84-934858-5-3