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The Lusitanians(, Portuguese: Lusitanos) were an Indo-European-speaking people living in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, in present-day central Portugal and the regions of Extremadura and Castilla y León of Spain. It is uncertain whether the Lusitanians were Celts or Celtiberians, related to the Lusones. After its conquest by the Roman Republic, the land was subsequently incorporated as a Roman province named after them ( Lusitania).
Sextus Julius Frontinus. Stratagems: Book II. V. On Ambushes The Lusitanians were also called Belitanians, according to the diviner Artemidorus. . S.l.: Real Academia de la Historia, 2000. 33 p. vol. 6 of Bibliotheca archaeologica hispana, v. 6 of Publicaciones del Gabinete de Antigüedades. . S.l.: Imprensa da Univ. de Coimbra. 94 p. Strabo differentiated the Lusitanians from the Iberians and thought of them as being Celtiberians who had been known as Oestriminis in ancient times.
However, based on archeological findings, Lusitanians and Vettones seem to have been largely pre-Celtic Indo-European populations that adopted Celtic cultural elements by proximity. On the other hand, Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela distinguished the Lusitanians from neighboring Celtic tribes in their geographical writings.Among them the Praestamarci, Supertamarci, Nerii, Artabri, and in general all people living by the seashore except for the Grovi of southern Galicia and northern Portugal: 'Totam Celtici colunt, sed a Durio ad flexum Grovi, fluuntque per eos Avo, Celadus, Nebis, Minius et cui oblivionis cognomen est Limia. Flexus ipse Lambriacam urbem amplexus recipit fluvios Laeron et Ullam. Partem quae prominet Praesamarchi habitant, perque eos Tamaris et Sars flumina non longe orta decurrunt, Tamaris secundum Ebora portum, Sars iuxta turrem Augusti titulo memorabilem. Cetera super Tamarici Nerique incolunt in eo tractu ultimi. Hactenus enim ad occidentem versa litora pertinent. Deinde ad septentriones toto latere terra convertitur a Celtico promunturio ad Pyrenaeum usque. Perpetua eius ora, nisi ubi modici recessus ac parva promunturia sunt, ad Cantabros paene recta est. In ea primum Artabri sunt etiamnum Celticae gentis, deinde Astyres.', Pomponius Mela, Chorographia, III.7-9.
The original Roman province of Lusitania briefly included the territories of the Astures and Gallaeci in the north, but these were soon ceded to the jurisdiction of the Provincia Tarraconensis, while the south remained the Provincia Lusitania et Vettones. Later, Gallaecia would become its own province. After this, Lusitania's northern border was along the Douro River, while its eastern border passed through Salmantica and Caesarobriga to the Anas (Guadiana) river.
Starting in 193 BCE, the Lusitanians fought the Romans in Hispania. In 150 BCE, they were defeated by the Roman praetor Servius Galba: springing a treacherous trap, he killed 9,000 Lusitanians and later sold 20,000 more as slaves in Gaul (modern-day France). This massacre would not be forgotten by Viriathus, who three years later (147 BCE) would become the leader of the Lusitanians, and severely damaged the Roman rule in Lusitania and beyond. In 139 BCE, Viriathus was betrayed and killed in his sleep by three of his companions (who had been sent as emissaries to the Romans), Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus, bribed by Marcus Popillius Laenas (although they were warrior companions of Viriathus, they were not Lusitanians themselves; they seem to have been , or from another people who were not Lusitanian). However, when the three returned to receive their reward from the Romans, the consul Quintus Servilius Caepio ordered their execution, declaring: "Rome does not pay traitors".
Endovelicus was the most important god for the Lusitanians. He is considered a possible Basque language loan god by some, yet according to scholars like José Leite de Vasconcelos, the word Endovellicus was originally Celtic languages, Celts myths and religion in the Iberian Peninsula and Great-Britain: a common origin? Andevellicos.
Endovelicus is compared with Welsh language and Breton language names, giving him the meaning of "Very Good God", the same epithet of the Ireland god Dagda. Even the Romans worshiped him for his ability to protect. His cult eventually spread across the Iberian peninsula and beyond, to the rest of the Roman Empire and his cult was maintained until the fifth century; he was the god of public health and safety. The goddess Ataegina was especially popular in the south; as the goddess of rebirth (spring), fertility, nature, and cure, she was identified with Proserpina during the Roman era.
Lusitanian mythology was heavily influenced by or related to Celtic mythology.
Also well attested in inscriptions are the names Bandua Inventaire des divnités celtiques de l’Antiquité, L’Arbre Celtique CIL II, *00215. (one of the variants of Borvo) often with a second name linked to a locality such as Bandua Aetobrico, and Nabia,TY - CHAP
AU - Lemos, Francisco
PY - 2008/01/01
SP - 122
EP - 211
T1 - A Cultura Castreja no Minho. Espaço Nuclear dos grandes povoados do Noroeste peninsular.
ER - a goddess of rivers and streams.
According to Strabo the Lusitanians were given to offering sacrifices; they practiced divination on the sacrificial offering by inspecting its vitals and veins.
They also sacrificed human victims, prisoners of war, by striking them under coarse blankets and observing which way they fell. They cut off the right hands of their captives, which they offered to the gods.
One hypothesis is that the Lusitanian language may have been basal Italo-Celtic, a branch independent from Celtic languages and Italic languages, and splitting off early from Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic populations who spread from Central Europe into western Europe after new Yamnaya migrations into the Danube Valley. Alternatively, a European branch of Indo-European dialects, termed "North-west Indo-European" and associated with the Beaker culture, may have been ancestral to not only Celtic and Italic, but also to Germanic and Balto-Slavic. Ellis Evans believes that Gallaecian and Lusitanian were one language (not separate languages) of the "P" Celtic variant.
Some recent scholars' analyses, further conducted on a newly discovered inscription, strongly suggest that Lusitanian is more akin to Italic and has no relation to Celtic. Blanca Maria Prósper, The Lusitanian oblique cases revisted: New light on the dative endings, 2021 Eustaquio Sánchez Salor, Julio Esteban Ortega, Un testimonio del dios Labbo en una inscripción lusitana de Plasencia, Cáceres. ¿Labbo también en Cabeço das Fráguas?, 2021
Lujan, argues that the evidence shows that Lusitanian must have diverged from the other western Indo-European dialects before the kernel of what would then evolve into the Italic and Celtic language families had formed. This points to Lusitanian being so ancient that it predates both the Celtic and Italic linguistic groups. Contact with subsequent Celtic migrations into the Iberian Peninsula are likely to have led to the Language shift of the Celtic elements found in the language."The number of inscriptions written totally or partially in Lusitanian is limited: only six or seven with Lusitanian vocabulary and/or grammatical words, usually dated to the first two centuries CE. All are written in the Latin alphabet, and most are bilingual, displaying code-switching between Latin and Lusitanian. There are also many deity names in Latin inscriptions. The chapter summarizes Lusitanian phonology, morphology, and syntax, though entire categories are not attested at all. Scholarly debate about the classification of Lusitanian has focused on whether it should be considered a Celtic language. The chapter reviews the main issues, such as the fate of Indo-European */p/ or the outcome of voiced aspirate stops. The prevailing opinion is that Lusitanian was not Celtic. It must have diverged from western Indo-European dialects before the kernel of what would evolve into the Celtic and Italic families had been constituted. An appendix provides the text of extant Lusitanian inscriptions and representative Latin inscriptions displaying Lusitanian deity names and/or their epithets." E.R. Luján 2019: p.304-334
They were a tribal confederation, not a single political entity; each tribe had its own territory and was independent, and was formed by smaller clans. However, they had a cultural sense of unity and a common name for the tribes.
Each tribe was ruled by its own tribal aristocracy and chief. Many members of the Lusitanian tribal aristocracy were warriors as happened in many other pre-Roman peoples of the Iron Age.
Only when an external threat occurred did the different tribes politically unite, as happened at the time of the Roman conquest of their territory when Viriathus became the single leader of the Lusitanian tribes. Punicus, Caucenus and Caesarus were other important Lusitanian chiefs before the Roman conquest. They ruled the Lusitanians (before Viriathus) for some time, leading the tribes in the resistance against Roman attempts of conquest, and were successful.
The known Lusitanian tribes were:
It remains to be known whether the Turduli Veteres, Turduli Oppidani, Turduli Bardili, and Turduli were Lusitanian tribes (coastal tribes), were related Celtic peoples, or were instead related to the Turdetani (Celts, pre-Celtic Indo-European, or Iberians) and came from the south. The name Turduli Veteres (older or ancient Turduli), a tribe that dwelt in today's Aveiro District, seems to indicate they came from the north and not from the south (contrary to what is assumed on the map). Several Turduli peoples were possibly Callaeci tribes that initially came from the north, towards the south along the coast and then migrated inland along the Tagus and the Anas (Guadiana River) valleys.
If there were more Lusitanian tribes, their names are unknown.
In times of peace, they had a particular style of dancing, which required great agility and nimbleness of the legs and thighs. In times of war, they marched in time, until they were ready to charge the enemy.
Appian claims that when Praetor Brutus sacked Lusitania after Viriathus's death, the women fought valiantly next to their men as women warriors.
Language
The Lusitanian language was a Paleohispanic language that clearly belongs to the Indo-European family. The precise affiliation of Lusitanian with the other Indo-European languages is still a matter of debate: there are those who endorse that it is a Celtic languages language with an obvious Celts to most of the lexicon, over many anthroponyms and toponyms. A second theory relates Lusitanian with the Italic languages; based on the names of Lusitanian deities with other grammatical elements of the area.
Tribes
The Lusitanians were a people formed by several that lived between the rivers Douro River and Tagus, in most of today's Beira and Estremadura regions of central Portugal, and some areas of the Extremadura region (Spain).
Warfare
The Lusitanians were considered by historians to be particularly adept at guerrilla warfare. The strongest amongst them were selected to defend the populace in mountainous sites. They used hooked javelins or made of iron, and wielded and helmets like those of the Celtiberians. They threw their darts from some distance, yet often hit their marks and wounded their targets deeply. Being active and nimble warriors, they would pursue their enemies and decapitate them.
Contemporary meaning
While the Lusitanians did not speak a Romance language, nowadays the term Lusitanian is often used as a metonym for the Portuguese people, and similarly Lusophone is used to refer to a Portuguese speaker within or outside Portugal, Brazil, Macau, Timor-Leste, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau, and other overseas territories and countries formerly comprised within the Portuguese Empire.
See also
Notes
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