Alpes Graiae et Poeninae
The Alpes Graiae et Poeninae, also known by the 2nd century AD as Alpes Atrectianae et Poeninae, was a small Alpine province of the Roman Empire created after the merging of the Alpes Poeninae and the Alpes Graiae. Comprising the modern Canton of Valais, the Tarantaise Valley, Beaufortain, Haut-Faucigny and the Aosta Valley, it was one of the three provinces straddling the Alps between modern France and Italy, along with the Alpes Maritimae and Alpes Cottiae.
The Procurator of the province resided in the capital of this province: Axima, which became Forum Claudii Ceutronum, former capital of the Alpes Graiae. He was seconded by a Praefectus in Octodorum, which became Forum Claudii Vallensium for the Alpes Poeninae.
Name
Variants
In ancient documents, the province appears under the forms Alpes Graiae, Alpes Poeninae et Graiae '''', and Alpes Graiae et Poeninae. The rarer variant Alpes Atrectianae occurs in epigraphic material.It may have been referred to as Alpes Graiae et Vallis Poenina at the time of its formation, which would represent an expanded form of Alpes Graiae et Poeninae. A Severian period inscription attests the variant Alpium Atrectianarum et Vallis Poeninae, in which Atrectianae replaces Graiae as a local or epigraphic alternative.
The name Vallis Poenina survives in the modern toponyms Pennine Alps and Valais.
Origin
According to Livy, the name Alpes Poeninae derives from an indigenous deity named Poeninus, attested as Poininos on local inscriptions and in the cult title Jupiter Poeninus.Xavier Delamarre has likewise proposed to identify a Celtic theonym *Graios as the origin of the name Alpes Graiae.
According to Guy Barruol, the form Alpes Atrectianae may derive from an otherwise unattested local kinglet *Atrectius, by analogy with the Alpes Cottiae, named after the local ruler Cottius. While the repeated occurrence of the cognomen Atrectianus among several governors of the province in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD may lend some support to this hypothesis, no direct evidence for a local dynast named Atrectius exists, and such a figure remains hypothetical.
History
Roman conquest and early administration
The region of Vallis Poenina, corresponding to the modern Canton of Valais between the Lake Geneva and the Great St. Bernard Pass, was inhabited at the time of the Roman conquest by Celtic tribes known as the Vallenses, namely the Nantuates, Veragri, Seduni, and Uberi. After the Roman invasion led by Augustus in 16–15 BC, the area was initially placed under military control '' and incorporated into the province of Raetia et Vindelicia, which stretched between the central Alps and the Danube.Formation of the province
The Vallensian tribes were granted Latin Rights and grouped into a single civitas Vallensium during the reign of Claudius. Most scholars associate this period with the beginning of the administrative reorganisation that eventually detached the Vallis Poenina from Raetia et Vindelicia and linked it to the Alpes Graiae, the Ceutron territory west of the Little [St Bernard Pass]. However, an inscription from Claudius's reign shows that the Vallis Poenina was still under the authority of the procurator of Raetia at that time, and the exact moment when the two Alpine districts were fully united remains uncertain.By the 2nd century, the two regions formed the province of Alpes Graiae et Poeninae, with Axima serving as the chief town of the Graian division, and Octodurus as the centre of the Poenine district. Some scholars date the definitive unification of the Alpes Graiae and Alpes Poeninae to the reign of Septimius Severus rather than to the reign of Claudius.