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The Salyes or Salluvii (Greek language: Σάλυες) were an ancient Celto-Ligurian people dwelling between the Durance river and the Greek colony of Massalia during the Iron Age. Although earlier writers called them 'Ligurian', Strabo used the denomination 'Celto-ligurian' in the early 1st century AD. A Celtic influence is noticeable in their religion, which centred on the cult of the tête coupée ('severed head'), as well as in the names of their towns and leaders. During the 2nd century BC, the Salyes were most likely at the head of a political and military confederation that united both Gallic and Ligurian tribes.
During most of their early history, the Salyes were in conflict with the neighbouring Greek inhabitants of Massalia, and later on with their ally the Roman Republic, until the consul Gaius Sextius Calvinus sacked their hill-fort Entremont ca. 122 BC. Revolts against the Roman conquerors were crushed in 90 and 83 BC.
The origin of the name remains obscure. The original form was most likely Salyes ≈ Salues (pronounced /Salwes/), later latinized as Salluvii (/Salluwii/). It is the form used by Caesar under the variant Sallyas in the oldest surviving attestation of the name, while Pliny wrote Salluvii some decades later in the late 1st century BC. According to linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, Salues may be a Celtic rendering of an original * Sḷwes, meaning 'the own ones'. In the Celtic context, the name is cognate with the Celtiberian Salluienses and Turma salluitana. It has also been compared with the Italic personal names Salluvius, Sallubius, Salluius, and Sallyius.
The Salluvian confederation, a political entity dominated by the Salyes that likely emerged in the 2nd century BC, covered a much larger area stretching from the Rhône to the Loup river (just west of the Var), and reaching the Mediterranean sea to the south, between the Arecomici, the Cavari and the later province of Alpes Maritimae.
Another settlement was known as Glanum (Latin Glanum, near modern St-Rémy-de-Provence). The name, meaning 'the clear/transparent one' in Gaulish, probably took its origin from a nearby river. Located on the great trade route connecting the Iberian Peninsula to Italy and occupied from the 6th–5th centuries BC onward, Glanon came under Greek influence from the mid-2nd century BC, which has been interpreted either as a takeover by the Massaliotes, or else as a Greek cultural imprint on the local Salluvian aristocracy. Glanon may have become the chief town of the Salyes after the sack of Entremont by the Romans ca. 122 BC. Major construction programs were launched between ca. 120 and 90 BC, including sanctuaries, public squares and administrative buildings, presumably for Glanon to assert itself as the dominant settlement of the area and display its new status to its neighbours. Glanon was abandoned ca. 270 AD after suffering from raids by Germanic tribes, and a new walled town was built in its vicinity at the site of St-Rémy.
The oppidum of Baou-Roux was located between Entremont and Massalia.
Conflicts between Rome and the Salyes lasted during nearly eighty years from the end of the Second Punic War (201 BC), during which the eastern part of Iberia came under Roman control and Massalia remained a faithful ally of Rome, up until the rendition of the Salluvian chief town Entremont ca. 122 BC. Involved in piracy and raids, the Ligurians threatened throughout the 2nd century BC the Massaliotes colonies along the Mediterranean coast, and more generally the trade route between the Iberian Peninsula and Italy. This culminated in a Roman military intervention in 154 BC against the Deciates and Oxybii, two Ligurian tribes that were presumably part of the Salluvian confederation.
During the conflict, the leaders of the Salyes, including their king Toutomotulos (or Teutomalius), fled with the rest of their armies to their allies the Allobroges, who refused to hand them over to Rome. A further and larger Roman force, including War elephant, was sent under the command of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, who defeated the Allobroges at the Battle of Vindalium in 121 BC. In August of the same year, the Roman army, strengthened by the troops of Fabius Maximus, inflicted a decisive defeat on a massive combined force of Allobroges, Arveni and the remaining Salyes at the Battle of the Isère River. Toutomotulus' followers were killed, enslaved, or driven into exile, while Crato, the Salluvian leader of the pro-Graeco-Roman faction, was granted 900 of his fellow citizens from slavery.
Between 120 and 117, the territory of the Salyes was incorporated into the Roman province of Gallia Transalpina.
After the foundation of a colonia romana at Arelate (Arles) in 46 BC, a large area west of Aquae Sextiae, including much of the Salluvian lands that had been handed over to Massalia ca. 122 BC, became subject to Arelate (modern Arles).
fact, the area surrounding the Salluvian chief-town of Entremont (near modern Aix-en-Provence) represented the frontier between the Ligurian tribes dwelling along the Mediterranean coast and the Celtic tribes of the lower Rhône Valley, who displayed a common force against the Roman conqueror at the end of the 2nd century BC. This geo-cultural frontier was probably used by the Romans when tracing the administrative border between the Civitas of Arelate and Aquae Sextiae in the 1st century BC.
The Celtic names of Salluvian rulers (Toutomotulos) and towns (Glanum) may suggest that Celtic speakers formed the ruling class of the confederation. As seen during the Roman conquest of the region, the local aristrocracy developed links with neighbouring Gallic tribes such as the Allobroges, although literary sources point towards a more complex reality, with significant Greek and Ligurian influences.
A Celtic-Ligurian sanctuary dedicated to the god Glan and the Matres was found at Glanum near a mineral spring.
The ties uniting those various tribes were probably loose, and local oppida must have retained considerable autonomy, as evidenced by the short lapse of time during which the confederacy collapsed when the Romans destroyed the Salluvian chief town and subjugated their leaders in 122–121 BC.
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