Gallaecians

The Gallaeci or Callaeci were a large Celtic tribal federation who inhabited Gallaecia, the north-western corner of Iberia, a region roughly corresponding to what is now northern Portugal, Galicia, western Asturias and western Castile and León in Spain, before and during the Roman period. They spoke a Q-Celtic language related to Northeastern Hispano-Celtic, usually called Gallaic, Gallaecian, or Northwestern Hispano-Celtic.

The region was annexed by the Romans in the time of Caesar Augustus during the Cantabrian Wars, a war which initiated the assimilation of the Gallaeci into Latin culture.

That the Gallaeci did not adopt writing until contact with the Romans constrains the study of their earlier history. However, early allusions to this people are present in ancient Greek and Latin authors prior to the conquest, which allows the reconstruction of a few historical events of this people since the second century BC.

Thanks to Silius Italicus, it is known that between the years 218 and 201 BC, during the Second Punic War, some Gallaecian troops were involved in the fight in the ranks of Carthaginian Hannibal against the Roman army of Scipio Africanus. Also Silius Italicus added a short description of the Gallaecian contingent and their curious military tactics:

The first known military conflict between Gallaeci and Romans is mentioned in Appian of Alexandria's book Iberiké, narrating events during the Lusitanian War (155-139 BC). In 139 BC, after being cheated by the Lusitanian chief (Viriatus), Quintus Servilius Caepio's army devastated few Gallaecian and Vettonian regions. The attack on these Southern Gallaecian peoples, near the border with Vettones, was punishment for Gallaecian support to Lusitanians. Orosius later mentioned that Brutus surrounded the Gallaeci, who were unaware, and crushed sixty thousand of them who had come to the assistance of the Lusitani. The Romans were victorious only after a desperate and difficult battle and fifty thousand of them were slain in that battle, six thousand were captured, and only some escaped. The legates Antistius and Firmius fought appalling battles and subdued the further parts of Gallaecia, forested and mountainous and bordering the Atlantic.

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