Carpetani

The Carpetani were one of the Celtic pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania, modern Spain and Portugal), akin to the Celtiberians, dwelling in the central part of the meseta - the high central upland plain of the Iberian Peninsula.

Not to be confused with Carpi people.
The Iberian Peninsula in the 3rd century BC.

Location

Since the 5th century BC the Carpetani inhabited the Toledo and Alcaraz highland ranges along the middle Tagus basin, occupying a territory that stretched from the Guadarrama river at the north to the upper Anas (Guadiana) in the modern provinces of Guadalajara, Toledo, Madrid and Ciudad Real, an area designated as Carpetania in the ancient sources. Main city-states (Civitates) in the region were Toletum (near modern Toledo; Roman or Celtiberian-type mint: Tole), Iplacea/Complutum (Alcalá de Henares – Madrid); Celtiberian-type mint: Ikezancom Konbouto?), Titulcia (El Cerrón, near modern Titulcia – Madrid), Consabura (Consuegra – Toledo), Barnacis (Orgaz – Ciudad Real; Celtiberian-type mint: Bornaiscom), Laminium (Argamasilla de Alba or Alhambra – Ciudad Real) and Alce (Campo de Criptana – Ciudad Real). Towns of lesser importance were Aebura (Cuerva – Toledo), Metercosa (Madridejos – Toledo), Ispinum (Yepes – Toledo), Miaccum (Casa de Campo – Madrid), Mantua (Montiel – Ciudad Real), Thermida (Trillo – Guadalajara), Ilarcuris (Horche – Guadalajara) and Ilurbida (Lorvigo, near Talavera de la Reina – Toledo).

The exact location of the remaining Carpetanian towns is either uncertain or unknown, this is true in the cases of Dipo[1] (near Toledo?), Libora,[2] Varada, Caracca or Characa,[3] Rigusa, Paterniana, and Alternia.

Origins

The origins of the Carpetani are obscure though their ruling elite certainly had Celtiberian[4][5] and Gallic-Belgae elements, whose ancestors arrived to the Peninsula in the wake of the Celtic migration at the 4th century BC;[6][7] the rest of the population was clearly Indo-European and very mixed, including people of native Ibero-Tartessian and Indo-Aryan[8] affiliation. Recent analysis of local epigraphic sources revealed that the Carpetani comprised some twenty-seven tribes, namely the Aelariques, Aeturiques, Arquioci, Acualiques, Bocouriques, Canbarici, Contucianci, Dagencii, Doviliques, Duitiques, Duniques, Elguismiques, Langioci, Longeidoci, Maganiques, Malugeniques, Manuciques, Maureici, Mesici, Metturici, Moenicci, Obisodiques, Pilonicori, Solici, Tirtaliques, Uloques, and Venatioques.[9]

Culture

In archeological terms, it is now believed that they stemmed from both the transitional Late Bronze Age/early Iron Age 'Campiñas de Madrid' farmers' and the 'Cogotas I' cultural groups.

Only a few Carpetanian towns appear to have issued their own currency, modelled after Roman patterns copied directly or adapted via Celtiberian coinage. In the 2nd century BC, Iplacea/Complutum and Barnacis struck coins with their names marked in Celtiberian script, whilst later Toletum struck theirs bearing its name in Latin script.[10]

History

By the later part of the 3rd century BC, the Carpetani had evolved into a sort of federation or loose tribal confederacy whose nominal capital was set at Toletum, with several centres of power in the main towns ruled by petty kings (Latin: Reguli). Some of these Rulers appear to have risen to prominence in the early 2nd century BC – one king Hilernus led a coalition of Carpetani, Vaccaei, Vettones and Celtiberians against consul Marcus Fulvius near Toletum in 193 BC, but he was defeated in battle and captured;[11] another Regulus, Thurrus, ruler of Alce signed a treaty with Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 179 BC.[12] Prior to the Second Punic War, they opposed Carthaginian expansion in central Spain, but in 220 BC Hannibal defeated a combined force of Vaccaei, Olcades and Carpetani at the battle on the Tagus,[13] thus completing his conquest of Hispania south of the Ebro with the exception of Saguntum.[14] They also provided mercenary troops to the Carthaginian armies, for Frontinus mentions the desertion of 3,000 Carpetani warriors from Hannibal's army when he entered in Italy after crossing the Alps.[15]

During the Sertorian Wars, the Carpetani remained loyal to Rome, whilst their perpetual rivals and enemies the Vettones and Celtiberians sided with Quintus Sertorius.[16]

From 197 BC and over the next 170 years, the Roman Republic slowly expanded its control over Hispania. This was a gradual process of economic, diplomatic and cultural infiltration and colonisation, with campaigns of military suppression when there was native resistance, rather than the result of a single policy of conquest. The Romans turned some of the native cities into tributary cities and established outposts and Roman colonies to expand their control.[17]

See also

Notes
  1. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 39: 30.
  2. Some archeologists place it somewhere between Augustobriga and Toledo, in either Cuevas or Montalbán.
  3. Plutarch, Sertorius, 17.
  4. Herodotus, Istoriai, II, 33; IV, 49.
  5. Strabo, Geographikon, III, 4, 12.
  6. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, III, 29.
  7. Appian, Iberiké, 2.
  8. Ferreira do Amaral, Os Filhos de Caim e Portugal – Povos e migrações no II milénio a. C. (2004), p. 224, footnote 323.
  9. Julián Hurtado Aguña, Las gentilidades presentes en los testimonios epigráficos procedentes de la Meseta meridional (2003-2004), pp. 185-206.
  10. Jesús Corrobles Santos, Los Carpetanos, in Prehistoria y Protohistoria de la Meseta Sur (Castilla-La Mancha) (2007), pp. 194-195.
  11. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 37: 7, 6.
  12. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 29: 40, 49.
  13. Polybius, Istorion, III, 13-14.
  14. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 21: 5, 2.
  15. Frontinus, Stratagemata, II, 7.
  16. Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain (2013), p. 79.
  17. Fernández-Götz, Manuel; Maschek, Dominik; Roymans, Nico (December 2020). "The dark side of the Empire: Roman expansionism between object agency and predatory regime". Antiquity. 94 (378): 1633–1635. doi:10.15184/aqy.2020.125. S2CID 229167666.

Bibliography
  • Ángel Montenegro et alii, Historia de España 2 - colonizaciones y formación de los pueblos prerromanos (1200-218 a.C), Editorial Gredos, Madrid (1989) ISBN 84-249-1386-8
  • Francisco Burillo Mozota, Los Celtíberos - etnias y estados, Crítica, Barcelona (1998, revised edition 2007) ISBN 84-7423-891-9
  • Harry Morrison Hine, Hannibal's Battle on the Tagus (Polybius 3.14 and Livy 21.5), Latomus: revue d'études latines, Société d'Études Latines de Bruxelles 38 (4), Bruxelles (1979) ISSN 0023-8856
  • João Ferreira do Amaral, Os Filhos de Caim e Portugal - povos e migrações no II milénio a.C., Quetzal Editores, Lisbon (2004) ISBN 972-564-595-2
  • Juan Pereira Siesto (coord.), Prehistoria y Protohistoria de la Meseta Sur (Castilla-La Mancha), Biblioteca Añil n.º 31, ALMUD, Ediciones de Castilla-La Mancha, Ciudad Real (2007) ISBN 84-934858-5-3
  • Julián Hurtado Aguña, Las gentilidades presentes en los testimonios epigráficos procedentes de la Meseta meridional, Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología: BSAA, Tomo 69-70, (2003-2004) pp. 185–206. ISSN 0210-9573 - http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1404299
  • Leonard A Curchin (5 May 2004). The Romanization of Central Spain: Complexity, Diversity and Change in a Provincial Hinterland. Routledge. pp. 37–. ISBN 978-1-134-45112-8.
  • Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley (2013) ISBN 978-1-84884-787-3

Further reading
  • Daniel Varga, The Roman Wars in Spain: The Military Confrontation with Guerrilla Warfare, Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley (2015) ISBN 978-1-47382-781-3
  • Ludwig Heinrich Dyck, The Roman Barbarian Wars: The Era of Roman Conquest, Author Solutions (2011) ISBNs 1426981821, 9781426981821
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