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Cisalpine Gaul (, also called Gallia Citerior or Gallia Togata) was the name given, especially during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, to a region of land inhabited by Celts (Gauls), corresponding to what is now most of northern Italy.
After its conquest by the Roman Republic in the 200s BC, it was considered geographically part of Roman Italy but remained administratively separated until 42 BC. It was a Roman province from c. 81 BC until 42 BC, when it was de jure merged into Roman Italy as already planned by Julius Caesar.
Cisalpine means "on this side of the Alps" (from the perspective of the Romans), as opposed to Transalpine Gaul ("on the far side of the Alps").
Gallia Cisalpina was further subdivided into Gallia Cispadana and Gallia Transpadana, i.e., its portions south and north of the Po River, respectively.
The Roman province of the 1st century BC was bounded on the north and west by the Alps, in the south as far as Piacenza by the river Po, and then by the Apennines and the river Rubicon, and in the east by the Adriatic Sea.
In 49 BC, all inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul received Roman citizenship,Cassius Dio XLI, 36. and eventually the province was divided among four of the eleven regions of Italy: Regio VIII Gallia Cispadana, Regio IX Liguria, Regio X Venetia et Histria, and Regio XI Gallia Transpadana.
Ligures lived on the Northern Mediterranean Coast straddling southeast French and North-west Italian coasts, including parts of Tuscany, Elba island and Corsica. Ligurian tribes were also present in Latium (see Rutuli)Hazlitt, William. The Classical Gazetteer (1851), p. 297. and in Samnium. According to Plutarch they called themselves Ambrones, which suggests a possible relationship between them and the Ambrones of northern Europe. Little is known of the Ligurian language. Only place names and personal names remain. It appears to be an Indo-European language with both Italic languages and particularly strong Celtic languages affinities. Because of the strong Celtic influences on their language and culture, they were known in antiquity as Celto-Ligurians (in Greek Κελτολίγυες, Keltolígues). Modern linguists, like Xavier Delamarre, argue that Ligurian was a Celtic language with some similarity to Gaulish. (2025). 9782877722377, Errance. ISBN 9782877722377 The Ligurian-Celtic question is also discussed by Barruol (1999). Ancient Ligurian is listed either as Celtic (epigraphic) or Para-Celtic (onomastic).
The Adriatic Veneti were an Indo-European people who inhabited north-eastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of the Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino. Storia, vita, costumi, religiosità dei Veneti antichi at .www.venetoimage.com (in Italian). Accessed on 2009-08-18. By the 4th century BC the Adriatic Veneti had been so Celticized that Polybius wrote that the Veneti of the 2nd century BC were identical to the Gauls except for their language.History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC by H. H. Scullard,2002, page 16: "... of healing. In the fourth century, their culture became so Celticized that Polybius described the second-century Veneti as practically in- distinguishable ..." The Greek historian Strabo (64 BC–AD 24), on the other hand, conjectured that the Adriatic Veneti were descended from Celts, who in turn were related to a later Celtic tribe of the same name whose members lived on the coast and fought against Julius Caesar. He further suggested that the identification of the Adriatic Veneti with the Enetoi led by Antenor — which he attributes to Sophocles (496–406 BC) — had been a mistake caused by the similarity of the names.Strabo, Geography, Book IV, Chapter 4: "It is these Veneti the, I think, who settled the colony that is on the Adriatic (for about all the Celti that are in Italy migrated from the transalpine land, just as did the Boii and Senones), although, on account of the likeness of name, people call them Paphlagonians. I do not speak positively, however, for with reference to such matters probability suffices." Book V, Chapter 1: "Concerning the Heneti there are two different accounts: Some say that the Heneti too are colonists of those Celti of like name who live on the ocean-coast; while others say that certain of the Heneti of Paphlagonia escaped hither with Antenor from the Trojan war, and, as testimony in this, adduce their devotion to the breeding of horses — a devotion which now, indeed, has wholly disappeared, although formerly it was prized among them, from the fact of their ancient rivalry in the matter of producing mares for mule-breeding." Book 13, Chapter 1: "At any rate, Sophocles says that ... Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across to the Adriatic Henetice, as it is called."
The defeat of the combined Samnium, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Samnite Wars ending in 290 BC sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe. At the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC, a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.
In the Second Punic War, the Boii and Insubres allied themselves with the Carthaginians, laying siege to Mutina (Modena). In response, Rome sent an expedition led by L. Manlius Vulso. Vulso's army was ambushed twice, and the Senate sent Scipio with an additional force to provide support. These were the Roman forces encountered by Hannibal after he crossed the Alps. The Romans were defeated in the Battle of the Ticinus, leading all the Gauls except for the Cenomani to join the insurgency. Rome then sent the army of Tiberius Sempronius Longus who engaged Hannibal in the Battle of the Trebia, also resulting in a Roman defeat, forcing Rome to temporarily abandon Gallia Cisalpina altogether, returning only after the defeat of Carthage in 202 BC.
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica completed the conquest of the Boii in 191 BC,Livy, although the Ligurians were only finally subdued when the Apuani were defeated by Marcus Claudius Marcellus in 155 BC. Fasti Triumphales, Attalus.
Probably officially established around 81 BC, the province was governed from Mutina (modern-day Modena), where, in 73 BC, forces under Spartacus defeated the legion of Gaius Cassius Longinus, the provincial governor.
In 49 BC, with the Lex Roscia, Julius Caesar granted to the populations of the province full Roman citizenship.
The Rubicon River marked its southern boundary with Italia proper. By crossing this river in 49 BC with his loyal XIII Legion, (2025). 9781526710093, Pen and Sword. ISBN 9781526710093 returning from the conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar precipitated the civil war within the Roman Republic which led, eventually, to the establishment of the Roman Empire. To this day the term "crossing the Rubicon" means, figuratively, "reaching the point of no return".
The province was merged into Italia about 42 BC, as part of Augustus Caesar "Italicization" program during the Second Triumvirate. The dissolution of the provincia required a new governing law or lex, although its contemporary title is unknown. The parts of it inscribed on a bronze tablet preserved in the museum at Parma are entirely concerned with arranging the judiciary: the law appoints two viri and four viri juri dicundo and also mentions a Prefect of Mutina.
Virgil, Catullus and Titus Livius, Uchicago.edu three famous sons of the Roman Province, were born in Gallia Cisalpina. The Dawn of the Roman Empire, by Livy, John Yardley, Waldemar Heckel.
The Canegrate culture testifies to the arrival of UrnfieldKruta, Venceslas: La grande storia dei celti. La nascita, l'affermazione e la decadenza, Newton & Compton, 2003, , migratory wave of populations from the northwest part of the Alps that, crossing the alpine passes, had infiltrated and settled in the western Po River area between Lake Maggiore and the Lake of Como (see Scamozzina culture). They were bearers of a new funerary practice, which supplanted the old culture of inhumation and instead introduced cremation.
The population of Canegrate maintained its own homogeneity for a limited period, approximately a century, after which it blended with the Ligures aboriginal populations to create the new Golasecca culture.
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