Cratistii

The Cratistii were an ancient pre-Roman, stock-raising people whose lands were situated along the upper Tagus valley, in the elevated plateau region of the western Cuenca and northeast Province of Teruel.

Origins

An intriguing people, their ethnic origins are difficult to determine, though their tribal name means "the most powerful". They bear no close relation to the Caristii who lived further north in the modern Vizcaya and Álava Basque provinces.

Culture

Archeological evidence retrieved from the cemetery of Madrigueras suggests that their culture was strongly Celtiberianized, being more closely affiliated with that of the neighbouring Olcades.
Their presumed capital was Segobriga and they held the important towns of Ercavica, and Contrebia Carbica.

History

Initially a dependent tribe of the Carpetani since at least the early 3rd Century BC, the Cratistii were submitted to Carthaginian rule upon the conquest of eastern Carpetania by Hannibal in 221-220 BC. Later they appear to have gravitated gradually towards the Roman sphere in the aftermath of the Second Punic War only to be raided by the Lusitani, who sacked Segobriga in 146 BC. Following the end of the Sertorian Wars in the mid-1st Century BC, the Cratistii regained their independence from the enfeebled Carpetani and were incorporated alongside their Uraci neighbours into romanized southern Celtiberia.