European Kingdoms

Acitavones / Acitauones (Gauls? / Celto-Ligurians?)

Alpine Tribes (Intro) Alpine Tribes Alpine Groups (Pre-Roman) Aquitani Tribes Celtic Tribes Rome

Prior to domination by Rome, the Alpine region contained various populations which had a complex, obscure, and ethnically-multilayered history. Two major ethnic groups were recorded (aside from intrusions by the Etruscans and Veneti), these being the Euganei on the north Italian plain and the Alpine foothills, and the Raeti in the Trentino and Alto Adige valleys.

There were a great many more minor groups, all of which seem to have formed part of the initial phase of the Golasecca culture. Generally they belonged to one or the other of these though, or to the coastal Ligurians who had gradually penetrated the Alps from the south, but who also extended a considerable way westwards along the Mediterranean coast.

Before and during the Roman republic period, Ligurians could be found across large areas of north-western Italy. They generally occupied territory which today forms the region of Liguria, extending west into Piedmont to the south of the River Po and even as far as the French Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Prior to Roman pressure they may even have extended as far as northern Tuscany and across the Pyrenees into Catalonia (see map for more information on general tribal locations in Europe).

The Acitavones tribe (or Acitauones) presents something of a problem. Next nothing is known about them, and two possible locations are available for their tribal territory. The first is in France, along the upper reaches - and possibly the source - of the River Isere which flows through the Tarentaise Valley and the modern commune of Bourg St Maurice (Latin Bergintrum, as mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary).

This is very close to the French/Italian border, just south of Chamonix-Mont Blanc. The second option is in Italy, in the Val d'Aosta near the Little St Bernard Pass which is also on the French/Italian border, and just a short way to the north-east of Bourg St Maurice.

An Italian source has also placed them in the region of the mountain known as Gran Paradiso (Alpi Graiae), between Valle d'Orco near Turin, La Val di Rhêmes (above the Dora Baltea), and in Valsavarenche (Val D'Aosta again).

(Information by Trish Wilson & Peter Kessler, with additional information from The History of Rome, Volume 1, Titus Livius (translated by Rev Canon Roberts), from The Histories, Herodotus (Penguin, 1996), from Les peuples préromains du Sud-Est de la Gaule: Étude de géographie historique, Guy Barruol (De Boccard, 1999), and from External Links: Indo-European Chronology - Countries and Peoples, and Indo-European Etymological Dictionary, J Pokorny, and Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith (1854, Perseus Digital Library), and The Natural History, Pliny the Elder (John Bostock, Ed), and Chiemgau Impact, and Chiemgau meteorite crater strewn field (Impact Structures), and L'Arbre Celtique (The Celtic Tree, in French), and Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz or Dictionnaire Historique de la Suisse or Dizionario Storico dell Svizzera (in German, French, and Italian respectively).)

25 - 15 BC

Augustus determines that the Alpine tribes need to be pacified in order to end their warlike behaviour, alternately attacking or extracting money from Romans who pass through the region, even when they have armies in tow.

He wages a steady, determined campaign against them during the Alpine Wars, and in a period of ten years he 'pacifies the Alps all the way from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian seas' (written by Augustus himself).

The Tropaeum Alpium ('Trophy of the Alps') stands majestically in the commune of La Turbie on the French Riviera, overlooking the principality of Monaco, and marking the final victory over the Alpine tribes by Augustus

14 BC

Emperor Augustus creates the province of Alpes Maritimae (the maritime, or seaward, Alps). It has its capital at Cemenelum (modern Nice, although this is switched in 297 to Civitas Ebrodunensium, modern Embrun). The history of the Alpine region's population of Celts and Celto-Ligurians is now tied to that of the empire.