status of the Lepontiers in the roman army and urban life??

[Folkert van Wijk]

Can anybody tell me something more about the relationship between the Lepontiers and the Romans. Through out the Roman history...

I know there culture is something like a mix between something Celtic and Roman... According to grave finds I say 50 to 50%. But that off course is material. So what about there status in the roman empire..?

[Nahars]

Can anybody tell me something more about the relationship between the Lepontiers and the Romans. Through out the Roman history...

I know there culture is something like a mix between something Celtic and Roman... According to grave finds I say 50 to 50%. But that off course is material. So what about there status in the roman empire..?

The Lepontii were part of the proto-Celtic "Golasecca culture" of northern Italy; they belonged to a first Celtic migration in the Alpine region and in the nearby portions of north-western Italy. That migration appened some centuries before the great Gallic invasion of Italy which occurred between the fifth and the fourth century BC; before the Gallic invasion of the Po valley and the Roman conquest, the Lepontii and their neighbours the Rhaeti had many contacts with the Etruscan centers in the Po valley, and to write they used an alphabet drafted from the Etruscan one; 46 Alpine tribes, and among them the Lepontii, were definitely subjugated by Drusus and Tiberius in 15 BC under emperor Augustus, as celebrated in the inscription of the "Tropaeum Alpium" near Monaco.

During the empire, the Lepontii probably were collected together with the other Alpine tribes in the "Cohortes Alpinorum".
For example the "Cohors prima Alpinorum equitata" was recorded in Illyricum in 60 AD, in Pannonia in 80AD, in Britannia in 103AD, in Dacia Superior in 144AD.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Thats cool info many thanks...Luciano are you from that region?

So the Lepontii where even longer a free people then let's say the Gauls..
hm interresting...

[Robert Vermaat]

During the empire, the Lepontii porbably were collected together with the other Alpine tribes in the "Cohortes Alpinorum".
For example the "Cohors prima Alpinorum equitata" was in recorded in Illyricum in 60 AD, in Pannonia in 80AD, in Britannia in 103AD, in Dacia Superior in 144AD.

Hmm, interesting.

Lepontius (presumably of Legio VIII near Strasbourg):


Notitia Dignitatum, second row from from below, second from the right - Tertia Julia Alpina.


Notitia Dignitatum, top row, first and second from the right - Secunda Julia Alpina and Prima (Julia?) Alpini.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Where they part of the bigger Helvetti "tribe" ore where they all together different??

And now ones you also sad something about there writing, maybe you can shed some light upon this topic I started here...
www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=21921
Because ELUVEITIE is I belief written by Lepontiërs with an Etruscan Alphabet... Maybe we can come up with the name written in a fully Lepontic writing manner...

[Nahars]

Where they part of the bigger Helvetti "tribe" ore where they all together different??

And now ones you also sad something about there writing, maybe you can shed some light upon this topic I started here...
www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=21921
Because ELUVEITIE is I belief written by Lepontiërs with an Etruscan Alphabet... Maybe we can come up with the name written in a fully Lepontic writing manner...

As far as I know they were two distinct groups; the Helvetii occuped the Swiss main area and were divided into four minor tribes; Caesar gives the names of two of them: the Verbigeni and the Tigurini.
The Lepontii lived in a small Alpine area along the Ticine and Ossola valleys and the related mountain passes (today's areas of Bellinzona, Lugano and Domodossola - ancient Ocela, their main center).

The inscription "eluveitie" was found in Mantua, an Etruscan center of the Po valley ...probably (it is only a supposition) it is an Etruscan inscription related to an Helvetian immigrant or a person with Helvetian origin living there, rather than a Lepontic inscription written with the Etruscan alphabet.
The termination of the word "eluveitie" in -ie is a tipical Etruscan male adjectival one; the corresponding Celtic form should have a termination in -ios . Mantua is also somewhat distant from the Lepontic or Helvetian areas.

Another problem is related to the datation of that inscription, which is dated back to 300BC; it seems that before moving to modern Switzerland the Helvetii lived north of the Rhine, and that migrated to the Swiss territories at the end of 2nd century BC pushed by the Germanic ethnic movements; surely the proto-Celtic "Golasecca" culture groups lived in the Alpine area and in the nearby north-western Italian region from the ninth century BC, so the Lepontii pre-existed to the Helvetian migration in the neighbouring Swiss areas.