Ligures
The Ligures or in English Ligurians, were an ancient people after whom Liguria, a region of present-day north-western Italy, is named. Because of the strong Celtic influences on their language and culture, they were also known in antiquity as Celto-Ligures and hence in English as Celto-Ligurians.
In pre-Roman times, the Ligurians occupied the present-day Italian region of Liguria, Piedmont, northern Tuscany, western Lombardy, western Emilia-Romagna, and northern Sardinia, reaching also Elba and Sicily. They inhabited also the French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Corsica; however, it is generally believed that around 2000 BC the Ligurians occupied a much larger area, extending as far as what is today Catalonia.
The origins of the ancient Ligurians are unclear, and an autochthonous origin is increasingly probable. What little is known today about the ancient Ligurian language is based on placenames and inscriptions on steles representing warriors. The lack of evidence does not allow a certain linguistic classification; it may be Pre-Indo-European, or an Indo-European language.
Name
The Ligures are referred to as Ligyes by the Greeks and Ligures by the Romans. According to Plutarch, the Ligurians called themselves Ambrones, which could indicate a relationship with the Ambrones of northern Europe.Geographical area of ancient Liguria
The geography of Strabo, from book 2, chapter 5, section 28 :This zone corresponds to the current region of Liguria in Italy as well as to the former county of Nice which could be compared today to the Alpes Maritimes.
The writer, naturalist and Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder writes in his book "The Natural History" book III chapter 7 on the Ligurians and Liguria:
Just like Strabo, Pliny the Elder situates Liguria between the rivers Varus and Magra. He also quotes the Ligurian peoples living on the other side of the banks of the Var and the Alps. He writes in his book "The Natural History" book III chapter 6 :
Transalpine Ligures are said to have inhabited the South Eastern portion of modern France, between the Alps and the Rhone river, from where they constantly battled against the Greek colony of Massalia.
History
Copper and Bronze ages
Copper begins to be mined from the middle of the 4th millennium BC in Liguria with the Libiola and Monte Loreto mines dated to 3700 BC. These are the oldest copper mines in the western Mediterranean basin. It was during this period of the Copper Age in Italy that we find throughout Liguria a large number of anthropomorphic stelae in addition to rock engravings.The Polada Culture was a cultural horizon extended in the Po valley from eastern Lombardy and Veneto to Emilia and Romagna, formed in the first half of 2nd millennium BC perhaps for the arrival of new people from the transalpine regions of Switzerland and Southern Germany. Its influences are also found in the cultures of the Early Bronze Age of Liguria, Romagna, Corsica, Sardinia and Rhone Valley. There are some commonalities with the previous Bell Beaker Culture including the usage of the bow and a certain mastery in metallurgy. Apart from that, the Polada culture does not correspond to the Beaker culture nor to the previous Remedello culture.
The Bronze tools and weapons show similarities with those of the Unetice Culture and other groups in north of Alps. According to Bernard Sergent, the origin of the Ligurian linguistic family would have to be found in the Polada culture and Rhone culture, both southern branches of the Unetice culture.
It is said that the ligurians inhabited the Po valley around the 2,000 B.C., they not only appear in the legends of the Po valley, but would have left traces found in the archaeological also in the area near the northern Adriatic coast. The Ligurians are credited with forming the first villages in the Po Valley of the facies of the pile dwellings and of the dammed settlements, a society that followed the Polada culture, and is well suited in middle and late Bronze Age.
The ancient name of the Po river derived from the Ligurian name of the river: Bod-encus or Bod-incus. This word appears in the placename Bodincomagus, a Ligurian town on the right bank of the Po downstream near today's Turin.
According to a legend, Brescia and Barra were founded by Cydno, forefather of the Ligurians. This myth seems to have a grain of truth, because recent archaeological excavations have unearthed remains of a settlement dating back to 1200 BC that scholars presume to have been built and inhabited by Ligures. Others scholars attribute the founding of Bergamo and Brescia to the Etruscans.
Canegrate and Golasecca cultures
The Canegrate culture may represent the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the Alpine passes, penetrated and settled in the western Po valley between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como. They brought a new funerary practice—cremation—which supplanted inhumation. It has also been proposed that a more ancient proto-Celtic presence can be traced back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, when north-western Italy appears closely linked regarding the production of bronze artifacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the Tumulus culture. The bearers of the Canegrate culture maintained its homogeneity for only a century, after which it melded with the Ligurian populations and with this union gave rise to a new phase called the Golasecca culture, which is nowadays identified with the Lepontii and other Celto-Ligurian tribes.Within the Golasecca culture territory roughly corresponds with the territories occupied by those tribal groups whose names are reported by Latin and Greek historians and geographers:
- Insubri: in the area south of Lake Maggiore, in Varese and part of Novara with Golasecca, Sesto Calende, Castelletto sopra Ticino; from the fifth century BC this area remains suddenly depopulated, while the first settlement of Mediolanum rises.
- Leponti: in the Canton of Ticino, with Bellinzona and Sopra Ceneri; in the Ossola.
- Orobi: in the area of Como and Bergamo.
- Laevi and Marici: in Lomellina.
Founding of Genoa
Thucydides speaks of the Ligures having expelled the Sicanians, an Iberian tribe, from the banks of the river Sicanus, in Iberia.
First contacts with Romans
Ligurian sepulchres of the Italian Riviera and of Provence, holding cremations, exhibit Etruscan and Celtic influences.In the third century BC, the Romans were in direct contact with the Ligurians. However, Roman expansionism was directed towards the rich territories of Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula, and the territory of the Ligurians was on the road.
Despite Roman efforts, only a few Ligurian tribes made alliance agreements with the Romans, notably the Genuates. The rest soon proved hostile. The hostilities were opened in 238 BC by a coalition of Ligurians and Boii Gauls, but the two peoples soon found themselves in disagreement and the military campaign came to a halt with the dissolution of the alliance. Meanwhile, a Roman fleet commanded by Quintus Fabius Maximus routed Ligurian ships on the coast, allowing the Romans to control the coastal route to and from Gaul and to counter the Carthaginian expansion in Iberia, given that the Pisa-Luni-Genoa sea route was now safe.
In 222 BC the Insubres, during a war with Romans occupied the oppidum of Clastidium, that at that time, it was an important locality of the Anamari, a Ligurian tribe that, probably for fear of the nearby warlike Insubres, had already accepted the alliance with Rome the year before.
For the first time, the Roman army marched beyond the Po, expanding into Gallia Transpadana. In 222 BC, the battle of Clastidium was fought and allowed Rome to take the capital of the Insubres, Mediolanum. To consolidate its dominion, Rome created the colonies of Placentia in the territory of the Boii and Cremona in that of the Insubres.
Second Punic War
With the outbreak of the second Punic war the Ligurian tribes had different attitudes. Some, like the tribes of the west Riviera and the Apuani, allied with the Carthaginians, providing soldiers to Hannibal's troops when he arrived in Northern Italy, hoping that the Carthaginian general would free them from the neighbouring Romans. Others, like the Taurini, took sides in support of the Romans.The pro-Carthaginian Ligurians took part in the Battle of the Trebia, which the Carthaginians won. Other Ligurians enlisted in the army of Hasdrubal Barca, when he arrived in Cisalpine Gaul, in an attempt to rejoin the troops of his brother Hannibal. In the port of Savo, then capital of the Ligures Sabazi, triremes of the Carthaginian fleet of Mago Barca, brother of Hannibal, which were intended to cut the Roman trade routes in the Tyrrhenian Sea, found shelter.
In the early stages of the war, the pro-Roman Ligurians suffered. The Taurini were on the path of Hannibal's march into Italy, and in 218 BC, they were attacked by him, as he had allied with their long-standing enemies, the Insubres. The Taurini chief town of Taurasia was captured by Hannibal's forces after a three-day siege.
In 205 BC, Genua was attacked and razed to the ground by Mago.
Near the end of the Second Punic War, Mago was among the Ingauni, trying to block the Roman advance. At the Battle of Insubria, he suffered a defeat, and later, died of wounds sustained in the battle. Genua was rebuilt in the same year.
Ligurian troops were present at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, which marked the final end of Carthage as a great power.