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European Kingdoms

Barbarians

 

Bergalei (Raeti) (Alpines)

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.

MapRaeti Tribes were not part of the West Indo-European migration into southern Central Europe between about 3500-2500 BC. Instead they seem to have borne a degree of relationship with the Etruscans of north-western Italy. This is discussed in more detail on the main Raeti page (and see map for general tribal distributions in the first centuries BC and AD).

The Bergalei tribe of Raeti occupied territory in what is known as Val Bregaglia or Bergeltal, part Switzerland (Grissons) and part Italy (Sondrio, that part of Italy which juts into Switzerland around Italy's Chiavenna and Switzerland's Bondo. These two towns are just twelve kilometres apart, while the immediate neighbours of the Bergalei were the Rugusci and the Suanetes, two of those tribes which are mentioned on the Tropaeum Alpium. The tribe's southern neighbours are cited as being the Aneuniates.

Interestingly enough, Chiavenna was at the northern end of the Via Regina, a Roman road which passed the western side of Lake Como before going on to Milan (Mediolanum) and ending at Cremona on the River Po.

The Bergalei are mentioned on the Tabula Clesiana, on which the Anauni are also mentioned, over a long dragged-out dispute with the people of Como, apparently a land dispute, and by the time it came to the notice of the Emperor Claudius the only thing known was the dispute itself. Apparently Emperor Tiberius did have it investigated but there was no written report of the outcome - by that time Tiberius had taken himself to Capri - and what decision Claudius took is also not on record.

There is some claim that the tribe was not Raeti, but they did end up becoming part of the province of Rhaetia in 15 BC. According to an Italian source the Romans referred to the people of Chiavenna as 'Clavennates' - in Italian 'chi' represents the Latin 'cl' - and those people who were around the River Mera as Bergalei.

The Alps

(Information by Trish Wilson, with additional information by Edward Dawson, Peter Kessler, & Maurizio Puntin, 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 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).)

c.600 BC

Bellovesus and his massed horde of people from the Bituriges, Insubres, and several other tribes begin a migration across the Alps and into northern Italy.

Map of Alpine and Ligurian tribes, c.200-15 BC
The origins of the Euganei, Ligurians, Raeti, Veneti, and Vindelici are confused and unclear, but in the last half of the first millennium BC they were gradually being Celticised or were combining multiple influences to create hybrid tribes (click or tap on map to view full sized)

This barrier is one which has apparently not previously been breached by Celts, but they are also deterred by a sense of religious obligation, triggered by news reaching them that another group looking for territory, a force of Massalians, is under attack by the Salyes (Ligurians).

Following a defeat of the Salyes, the Celts make the crossing, heading through the passes of the Taurini and the valley of the Douro. Then they defeat Etruscans in battle not far from the Ticinus. Bellovesus and his people settle around the Ticinus and build a settlement called Mediolanum (modern Milan).

This could herald the start of the period in which - if they are not already there - various Celtic tribes settle the western Alps rather than following Bellovesus into Italy, such as the Veragri, while the native Ligurians are compressed southwards towards the Mediterranean, westwards to create a Celto-Ligurian hybrid group, and possibly northwards (specifically the Lepontii).

Source of the Ticino
The mountainous Alpine country of the Raeti would have supplied a relatively tough tribal life during which it would seem that they never particularly thrived or expanded and which led to their easy absorption into Celtic and Latin cultures

The Raeti and the many Raeti Tribes may not see any immediate change, but Celtic influences over them will steadily increase up to the point at which Rome takes over. This may not only account for the confusing mish-mash of Ligurians and Raeti in the southern Alps, but also to confusion over ethnic identities, although the Bergalei are usually included as Raeti.

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).

La Turbie and the Trophy of Augustus
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 AD 297 to Civitas Ebrodunensium, modern Embrun). The history of the Alpine region's population of Celts, Celto-Ligurians, Euganei, and Raeti is now tied to that of the empire.

 
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