European Kingdoms

Deciates / Dexiates (Celto-Ligurians)
Incorporating the Caudellenses

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.

The Ligurians were a people who, before and during the Roman republic period, could be found in north-western Italy. They largely 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 have extended as far as northern Tuscany and across the Pyrenees into Catalonia.

Livy wrote about the initial Celtic breakthrough into Italy through the western Alps, with the story dated to about 600 BC. Continuous waves of Celts followed that path over the next two or three hundred years to create a substantial Celtic population across the north Italian plain. This pushed out previously-dominant Etruscans and would also have compressed the main Ligurian population southwards (primarily) towards the coast.

Other Ligurian groups - certainly those in the western Alps - became Celto-Ligurians over time as the powerful newcomers increased dominance over them. More potential Ligurians in the north were compressed into the foothills of the Alps (the Lepontii), perhaps also taking on board a Raeti influx (or vice versa - their story is complicated), while the Vindelici could be found on the opposite side of the Alps.

The Deciates or Dexiates (and sometimes the Dexiati or Decietae) were focussed on a oppidum which was known as Castellar. That location has been pinned down only due to the work of the French historian, Guy Barruol, who specialised in the ancient history of south-eastern Gaul and the Alps, with a follow-up by Xavier Delamarre, a specialist in ancient languages which include Indo-European.

(Information by Trish Wilson, 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), from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), from Encyclopaedia of the Roman Empire, Matthew Bunson (1994), from Die Kelten in Österreich nach den ältesten Berichten der Antike, Gerhard Dobesch (in German), from Urbanizzazione delle campagne nell'Italia antica, Lorenzo Quilici & Stefania Quilici Gigli (in Italian), from La frontiera padana, Mauro Poletti (in Italian), 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), and Le Alpi (Università di Trento).)

c.600 BC

The first century BC writer, Livy (Titus Livius Patavinus), writes of an invasion into Italy of Celts during the reign of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, king of Rome. This event will reshape the Alpine populations into a pattern which is familiar to Romans of the first century BC.

The Ligurian coastline of modern Italy owes its name to the Ligurian people, a pre-Indo-European grouping which probably consisted of several influences prior to being Latinised by the Romans

As archaeology seems to point to a start date of around 500 BC for the beginning of a serious wave of Celtic incursions into Italy, this event has either been misremembered by later Romans or is an early precursor to the main wave of incursions, probably as a result of the same apparent overpopulation which doubtless forces the start of migration into Iberia around a century earlier than this.

That overpopulation is very evident in Gaul, as this is the direction from which the Celts travel. Their advance into the Po Valley means confrontation with Etruscans who dwell between the Apennines and the Alps.

It also forces the Ligurians southwards, and the ancestors of the Lepontii northwards, while the Raeti also have to relocate, concentrating themselves in the Alps (according to Pliny the Elder).

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)

It is possible that the Ligurian relocation serves to fracture once-large tribes into the many smaller units which are later recorded in the western Alps (and beyond in the case of a potential component of the Cantabri tribe). Celticisation follows relocation to create a swathe of Celto-Ligurian tribes, many of which are located in what is now France, close to the Italian border.

155 - 154 BC

The Hellenic city of Massalia, with its ties of friendship with Rome since the Second Punic War, appeals for aid against the Ligurian Oxybii who control the Argens valley and also the Deciates. The tribes are defeated by Roman Consul Quintus Opimius.

The Massalian outpost of Antipolis (today's Antibes) and its Antipolitani people have constantly been threatened by the Celto-Ligurian tribes of the western Alps. It is only after this defeat of the local tribes and the confiscation of their lands that Antipolis becomes stable and prosperous.

The Celtic tribes of the western Alps were relatively small and fairly fragmented, but they made up for that with a level of belligerence and fighting ability which often stunned their major opponents, including the Romans

45 BC

The Vulgientes have occupied their principal civitas of Perreal since the third century BC. Now an entire new town is either set up at nearby Apt, or an existing settlement of Apt is entirely rebuilt - information is unclear - on the orders of Julius Caesar.

It is named Colonia Apta Iulia Vulgentiium and the tribe is relocated here from Perreal (now Domaine Perreal at the centre of the Parc National Regional du Luberon).

c.27 BC

Sometime around the point at which Gallia Transalpina becomes Gallia Narbonensis, the city of Antipolis is cited, immediately after the mention of the oppidum Latinum Antipolis, and the 'regio Deciatium', the 'region of the Decietae' or Deciates.

This suggests that the Deciates had not previously been elevated to the same rank as the Antipolitans but had instead been subjugated under Antipolitan rule.

During his long 'reign' as Rome's first citizen, Octavian brought peace to the city and oversaw its transition from failing republic to vigorous and expanding empire

On the other hand, those territories which are referred to as regio Oxubiorum Ligaunorumque, the 'region of the Oxybii and Ligaunes', are mentioned after the colony of Forum Iulii (Fréjus), implying that they henceforth depend upon the latter (according to Pliny).

The full integration of the Deciates into the city of the Antipolitans does indeed take place between the end of the first century BC and the first century AD given that, in the second century AD, Ptolemy cites Antipolis as the metropolis of the Deciates. By this time the two territories must have been amalgamated.

AD 23

The final edition of Strabo's Geography is published and the complete work survives today. He talks a good deal about Roman battles as part of the Alpine Wars to clear the Alpine passes to Gaul, passes which are occupied by Ligurians amongst others (including the Ligurian Cotti Regnum).

The 'Trophy of the Alps' is a Roman monument which is erected in 5 BC at the village of La Turbie both to commemorate the conquest of the Alps and the submission of forty-four Ligurian tribes during Augustus' campaigns in 25 BC, 16 BC, and 15 BC and also to mark the boundary between Italy and Gaul.

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

The Ligurians remain identifiable in the form of the Ingauni and Intemelii, two main groups which are sometimes referred to by modern writers as tribes. They have not remained peaceful after the settlement of 181 BC, but are by now entirely pacified.

The main settlement for the former is Albingaunum (modern Albenga), and for the latter Albium Intemelium (now Vintimiglia). They retain their piratical habits but, in effect, live on reservations (prescribed territory which is fixed in sized by the Romans). In time all Ligurians and Celto-Ligurians are subsumed by Roman (Latin) culture and language.