Lacetani

Strabo, in a fairly refined geographic description, portrays a country that "begins at the foothills of the Pyrenees and then broadens out over the plains and joins the districts round about Ilerda and Osca, that is, the districts which belong to the Ilergetans, not very far from the Iberus... It is beyond Iaccetania, towards the north, that the tribe of the Vasconians is situated," However, he ascribes this country to the Iacetani.Strabo, Geographica, [https://archive.org/details/geographyofstrab02stra/page/96/mode/2up 3.4.10] (trans. Jones, Loeb Classical Library, 1923): ᾿Ιακκητανῶν Ἰακκητανοὶ, Ἰακκητανίας. Surviving mentions in Livy suggest their neighbors, and possibly relatives or confederates, were the Ilergetes, Bergistani or Bargusii, Ausetani and Suessetani, who together populated the district at the foot of the Pyrenees, and north of the river Ebro.Livy, Ab urbe condita Libri [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi00121.perseus-eng3:23 21.23]

In three points of Pliny the elder's geographical description of Hispania Citerior, variant readings with the name Lacetani exist, but more often these are reconstructed as one of the others: Laeetani, where he located them, with the Indigetes, after the Cessetani around Tarraco and the Ilergetes around Subur, on the river Rubricatus (Llobregat);Pliny, Natural History, [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:3.4 3.4.22 ,24]. For manuscript variations, including Lacetani, Laetani and Laletani, see: {{cite book |editor1-last=Mayhoff |editor1-first=Carolus |title=Naturalis historiae libri XXXVII post Ludovici Iani obitum recognovit et scripturae discrepantia adiecta |year=1906 |volume=1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cplinisecvndinat0001caro/page/240/mode/1up 240-242] |language=la |publisher=Teubner |postscript=none}} and less cryptically, {{Cite book| publisher = Friderici et Andreae Perthes| volume = 1| pages = [https://books.google.com/books?id=w6ZPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA216#v=onepage&q&f=false 216–218]| last = Sillig| first = Julius |authorlink=Karl Julius Sillig |title = C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis historiae libri XXXVII| date = 1851}} Iacetani immediately following, when Pliny lists the Ausetani, Iacetani and Cerretani along the Pyrenees;The manuscripts have readings among which Lacetani is recurring. See Mayhoff, [https://archive.org/details/cplinisecvndinat0001caro/page/240/mode/1up p. 240], and Sillig, [https://books.google.com/books?id=w6ZPAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA216#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 217]. Iacetani again, where they appear as a tributary of Rome in the conventus of Caesaraugusta.

Ptolemy located some ten towns among those in a territory, of the Lacetani or the Iacetani.Ptolemy Geographia 2.6.72, reads Ἀκκητάνοι or Ἰακκητανοὶ, but Stückelberger et al note that the Lacetani are probably meant: {{Cite book| publisher = Schwabe| isbn = 978-3-7965-3703-5| last1 = Stückelberger| first1 = Alfred| last2 = Grasshoff| first2 = Gerd| title = Klaudios Ptolemaios, Handbuch der Geographie |volume=1 |year = 2017| page=197 |language=de,grc,la }} For an older critical edition see {{cite book |editor1-last=Müller |editor1-first=Karl |editor1-link=Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Müller |title=Claudii Ptolemæi: geographia |year=1883 |publisher=Didot |pages= [https://books.google.com/books?id=cW1iwE-45hcC&pg=PA195#v=onepage 195-196] |language=la,grc}} For a more readable listing and a reconstructed map, {{cite journal |last1=Rosselló i Verger |first1=Vicenç M. |title=Els Països Catalans als textos grecs de Ptolemeu. Assaig de reconstrucció |journal=Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia |date=2021 |issue=91-92 |pages=153–164 |url=https://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/TSCG/article/view/149562 |doi=10.2436/20.3002.01.215}}{{Cite journal| volume = 21| pages = 113–121| last = Barbieri| first = Guido| title = Iaccetani, Lacetani e Laeetani| journal = Athenaeum: Studi di letteratura e Storia dell'antichità| year = 1943}} They included:

• Aeso (Isona)
• Udura (Cardona?{{Cite DGRG |title=Jaccetani |url= https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0064%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DI%3Aentry+group%3D1%3Aentry%3Djaccetani-geo |volume=2}})
• Ascerris (related to the river Ésera? Segarra?)
• Setelsis/Selensis (Solsona)
• Telobis (Monzón?{{cite web |url=https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/246695 |title=Places: 246695 (Tolous) |year=2019 |work=Pleiades}} Martorell?)
• Ceresus (Seròs?{{Cite Barrington|396}} Santa Coloma de Queralt?)
• Bacasis (Bagà? Manresa?)
• Iessus (Guissona? Igualada?)
• Anabis (Tàrrega?)
• Cinna

Most of these names have recently been tentatively related to early Indo-European roots, rather than Iberian or Celtic words.{{cite journal |last1=Curchin |first1=Leonard A. |title=Settlement and toponymy in ancient Catalunya: naming the provincial landscape |journal=Hispania antiqua |date=2011 |issue=35 |pages=301–320 |url=http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/9806 |issn=1130-0515}}{{cite book |last1=Villar |first1=Francisco |title=Els substrats de la llengua catalana: una visió actual |date=2002 |publisher=Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura |location=Barcelona |isbn=84-7283-645-2 |pages=68-72 |url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=911133 |chapter=Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en Cataluña y el Noreste hispano |lang=ca}} Another study concluded that an Indo-Europen layer is significant, some Vasconian is also found, and a possible Iberian layer may be hidden due to the limited knowledge of this language. The names, recorded by Roman writers, may reflect the languages of the settlements of their own time, or merely an older layer of names that were retained by newer populations.{{cite book |last1=García Alonso |first1=Juan Luis |title=La Península Ibérica en la "Geografía"de Claudio Ptolomeo |date=2003 |publisher=Universidad del País Vasco |location=Vitoria-Gasteiz |isbn=84-8373-569-5 |pages=413-419, 515-518 |url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=64375}}

The name is mentioned by some Roman period writers. Livy's Lacetani first appear in the context of the early stages of the Second Punic War, with the Carthaginian occupation of Lacetania by Hannibal, on his way to cross the Pyrenees: "he led his troops across the Ebro in three columns, after sending agents ahead, to win over with presents the Gauls who dwelt in the region which the army had to cross, and to explore the passes of the Alps. ... He now subdued the Ilergetes, and the Bargusii and Ausetani, and also Lacetania, which lies at the foot of the Pyrenees."Here, neither of the initial-L names is actually attested in the manuscripts. The oldest manuscript of Livy's books 21-30 (known in this context as [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8470112j P]), starts on a later chapter. Newer manuscripts have the readings Aquitaniam / Aquitanos (per {{cite book |last1=Briscoe |first1=John |title=Titi Livi Ab urbe condita. Tomus III, Libri XXI-XXV |publisher=Clarendon |isbn=978-0-19-968616-2 }}; {{Cite book| edition = 1964| publisher = Clarendon | last1 = Conway| first1 = Robert Seymour| last2 = Walters| first2 = Charles Flamstead |title = Titi Livi Ab Urbe condita| chapter = XXI.23.2| series = Oxford classical texts| orig-year = 1929| chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/titiliviaburbeco03livy/page/n63/mode/1up}}). In 1555 Carlo Sigonio proposed to emend it to Lacetaniam, and all major editions of Livy have followed him, as did Loeb. The case has been laid out by Arnold Drakenborch, who also cited some corrections and minor variations, e.g. Accetaniam: {{cite book |last1=Drakenborch |first1=Arnold |title=T. Livii Patavini Historiarum ab urbe condita libri, qui supersunt, omnes, cum notis... |year=1740 |volume=3 |authorlink=Arnold Drakenborch |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=H0IhAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA395#v=onepage&q&f=false 395]|language=la}} Hübner 1866 proposed Iacetaniam instead. Compare the relevant folios of three manuscripts: [https://fc.cab.unipd.it/fedora/objects/o:376674/methods/bdef:Book/view?language=en#page/26/mode/1up M]; [https://fc.cab.unipd.it/fedora/objects/o:378708/methods/bdef:Book/view?language=en#page/20/mode/1up N]; [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105484747/f23.item C]. Secondly, a battle is described and placed shortly after Scipio Calvus's arrival in Hispania in 215 BCE; it tells that Roman forces defeated a Lacetani rescue force, on its way to a besieged Ausetanian city, after Hasdrubal the Carthaginian instigated the Ilergetes to into rebellion and these two peoples had joined.Livy, [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi00121.perseus-eng1:60 21.60-61], concerning Laeetani (Loeb), Lacetanis(/Laeetanis)..Lacetanos (Manuscripts). In the time of Scipio Africanus's commandment in Iberia, the Lacetani are said to have taken part in the rebellion under Indibilis and Mandonius, whom on this point the text presents as Lacetani rather than Ilergetes.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi00128.perseus-eng3:24 28.24-29], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi00128.perseus-eng1:34 28.34], concerning Lacetani (Loeb, which notes however, "Probably Livy means the Laeetani of N.E. Spain in the region of Barcelona.") Finally Livy writes of their part in the Iberian revolt of 197-195 BCE, and an attack that Cato the elder led on their city with Suessetani auxiliaries on his side. Incidentally, they are described: "The Lacetani, a remote and forest-dwelling race, were kept under arms, partly by their native savageness, partly by their consciousness of having pillaged the allies in sudden raids while the consul and the army were engaged in the campaign in Turdetania."Livy, [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi00134.perseus-eng3:20 34.20], concerning Lacetani/Lacetanos. According to Plutarch, the city harbored Roman deserters, who were sentenced to death after the victory (in marked difference from Scipio Africanus's approach), and the battle contributed to the quarrel between the two Romans.Plutarch, Lives: Marcus Cato [the elder], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg025.perseus-eng1:11 11]

Sallust's Histories has Lacetania as a territory that Pompey claimed to have recovered from Sertorius in 76 BCE.Sallust, [https://www.attalus.org/translate/sallust.html Histories], [2.82B / 2.98] = "Letter of Gnaeus Pompeius", 2.5 (Loeb Classical Library 1965 edition, pages [https://archive.org/details/sallustloebclass0000tran/page/384/mode/2up 416-417]) Strabo mentions the country's place in Roman internal wars: Sertorius and Pompey's war, the defeat of Pompey's generals in the Battle of Ilerda in Caesar's Civil War, and later battles of Sextus Pompey and Caesar's generals. Cassius Dio turns a light on the locals' alliances in the latter two. Once, writing that, "...it was with difficulty that he [Caesar, in Ilerda] managed to obtain provisions, inasmuch as he was in a hostile territory and unsuccessful in his operations. ... [After the Siege of Massilia], the victory was announced to the Spaniards with so much intentional exaggeration that it led some of them to change and take the side of Caesar."Cassius Dio: [https://archive.org/details/dios-roman-history.-vol.-4-loeb-66/page/n22/mode/1up 41.20-21] (Loeb Classical Library, trans. Cary, 1916) And again, that when Sextus Pompey fled from Hispania Baetica after the Battle of Munda, "he first came to Lacetania and concealed himself there. He was pursued, to be sure, but eluded discovery because the natives were kindly disposed to him out of regard for his father’s memory. Later, when Caesar had set out for Italy and only a small army was left in Baetica, Sextus was joined both by the natives and by those who had escaped from the battle; and with them he came again into Baetica, because he thought it a more suitable region in which to carry on war."Cassius Dio: [https://archive.org/details/dios-roman-history.-vol.-4-loeb-66/page/n216/mode/1up 45.10.1] (Loeb Classical Library, trans. Cary, 1916)

An even more obscure name has been brought into the mix. Martial in his epigrams recalled Laletana as a kind of cheap wine: "...Ask an innkeeper for Laletanian lees if you take more than ten drinks, Sextilianus."Martial, 1.26. {{cite book |last1=Shackleton Bailey |first1=David Roy |title=Epigrams |date=1993 |publisher=Harvard university press |location=Cambridge (Mass.) London |isbn=0-674-99555-4 |edition=New translation}} For the older Ker translation: [https://topostext.org/work/677 Epigrams], 1.26; 1.49; 7.53 In another epigram, welcoming one Licinianus on his retirement from Rome's senate, Martial painted a scene from this country's life: "And when rimy December and winter wild shall howl with the hoarse North Wind, you will go back to the sunny shores of Tarraco and your own Laletania. There you will slaughter deer snared in soft-meshed toils and native boars and run the cunning hare to death with your stout horse (stags you will leave to the bailiff). The nearby wood shall come down right to your hearth and its girdle of grimy brats. The hunter will be invited; shout from close by, and a guest will come to share your dinner..."Martial, Epigrams, 1.49. Here the manuscripts vary between Leletania and Lacetania. Hübner (1866) regarded those with the form Laletania as the better ones. Others suspected Laletania is a corruption of Laeetania or Laietania. See {{cite book |last1=Galán Vioque |first1=Guillermo |translator-last=Zoltowsky |translator-first=J. J. |title=Martial, Book VII. A Commentary |year=2002 |publisher=Brill |pages=322-323 |doi=10.1163/9789004350977}} For Licinianus see {{Cite book| publisher = de Gruyter | doi= 10.1515/9783110624755 |last1 = Soldevila| first1 = Rosario Moreno| last2 = Castillo| first2 = Alberto Marina| last3 = Valverde| first3 = Juan Fernández| title = A Prosopography to Martial's Epigrams| year = 2019 |pages=338-339}} In a third epigram, Laletanae sapae wine appear as part of a list.Martial, 7.53, and see Galán Vioque, p. 322-323. Pliny made a similar note about a certain wine from Hispania as one from high yield vines.Pliny, Natural History, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:14.8 14.8.71]. Hübner (1866) claimed that his proposed reading, Laeetana, is found in the better manuscripts, although the modern editions vary between lasetana, lasitana, lasitania and lusitana only. For manuscript variations, see: {{cite book |editor1-last=Mayhoff |editor1-first=Carolus |title=Naturalis historiae libri XXXVII post Ludovici Iani obitum recognovit et scripturae discrepantia adiecta |year=1909 |volume=2 |publisher=Teubner |page=[https://archive.org/details/cplinisecvndinat0002caro/page/486/mode/1up 486] |language=la}}{{break}} Editors have shifted to Hübner's emendation from Niccolo Perotti (Sipontino)'s one, Laletana, made in analogy with Martial's text. It appeared posthumously on his Cronu copiae: {{Cite book| publisher = Magistrum Paganinum |title = Cornv Copiae: Sive Commentarios Lingvae Latinae |year = 1489 |page= [https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00057792?page=666 315v] |chapter=§ In Sextilianum Epig[ram] LV |postscript=none}}. Sipontino's was contested by Ermolao Barbaro, who preferred to leave the reading Lusitana, and attribute Pliny's wine to Lusitania, but this idea was not received: {{cite book |last=Barbarus |first=Hermolaus |author-link=Ermolao Barbaro |title=Castigationes: Plinianae Hermolai Barbari Aquileiensis Pontificis |page=[https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/view/bsb00062009?page=359 177r] |year=1492 |publisher=Eucharius Silber |language=la |quote=HISPANIARVM LVSITANA. Sipontinus Laletana. Credo quoniam Martialis dicat: Laletana bibis: ut fere pro vilibus acceperit: vilitatem faciente copia. Ipfe nihil muto: cum feracem Strabo Lusitaniam: atque ut verbo eius utar: beatam rerum omnium praeter montana eius tradat. |postscript=none}}. This term is most likely a variation on Laeetani rather than Lacetani. The focal point of Martial's Laletania might be found through recent research on Laeetanian wine-making, which became a major export industry in the relevant period. The Licinius family was a prominent grower, as gleamed from stamped amphoras, and their estates have been identified with the ruins in Lliçà (the current municipalities Lliçà d'Amunt and Lliçà de Vall), and possibly also in Granollers.{{Cite book| isbn = 978-1-4073-0270-6| volume = 1782| editor1-last = Funari |editor2-last= Garrafoni |editor3-last= Letlien | last1 = Carreras| first1 = C.| last2 = Olesti| first2 = O.| title = New perspectives on the Ancient World: modern perceptions, ancient representations |chapter = New methods for the study of the social landscape from Laietania wine production region (NE Spain) |location = Oxford (GB) |series = British Archaeological Reports International Series| year = 2008 |chapter-url=http://www.icac.cat/wp-content/uploads/users/default/biblioteca/icac_art_39.pdf |pages=135-136}}

Emil Hübner sought to identify the Lacetani with the Iacetani in most of the classical references, where the geographic context or progression of the text allows to link it to the mountainous region north of Caesaraugusta. He excepted Livy 21.60-61, and Pliny 3.4.22 — as these passages show a coastal context that better fits the Laeetani — and was not decided if Laletania (and its wine) should be treated as a separate coastal group or a variation of Laeetani. He noted Theodor Mommsen's view, that the alteration of L and I can reflect a Spanish ll sound. His view has been well received, at least in the following decades.

Guido Barbieri favored the view that all three people existed (and he too was not decided about the Laletani). The name is too widely used to be regarded as a collection of transmission errors. The description of the Lacetani as living at the foot of the Pyrenees, with the Ausetani, Laeetani and Suessetani on their east, the Cerretani on their north, and Ilergetes on their west (across the river Segre), was taken as consistent and complementing across several geographical passages from Livy, Pliny and Strabo. The Iacetani's territory as much farther, still west of the Ilergetes, and fixed around Iacca. Other passages were interpreted as confused in the original texts: Ptolemy's list of cities, of which about seven are tentatively identified, as Lacetanian territories, which Ptolemy must have confusedly ascribed to the Iacetani; Pliny's listing of cities under the conventus of Caesaraugusta and that of Tarraconensis; and since the Laeetani, on the coast, turn out to be adjacent to the Lacetani, Barbieri found the references to the episodes of Pompey and Sextus Pompey as ambiguous in their localization; however, Hannibal's episode agrees with the geographical descriptions, and Cato's has to be assigned to the real Lacetani, too. Finally, the Lacetani may actually be a substituent of the Ilergetes, or at least closely related, which would explain both the double identification of Indibilis and Mandonius, and why Greek geographers did not list them by name.

• Iberians
• Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

{{reflist}}

• {{cite web |url=https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/246458 |title=Places: 246458 (Lacetani) |publisher=Pleiades}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111002000704/http://www.mac.cat/cat/Rutes/Ruta-dels-Ibers/Els-lacetans Lacetans]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20040611215344/http://www.arqueotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)]

{{Pre-Roman peoples in Spain}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

Category:History of Catalonia

Category:Ancient peoples of Spain