Gallaecia or
Callaecia was the name of a
Roman province and an early
Mediaeval kingdom that comprised a territory in the north-west of
Hispania (approximately present-day
Galicia in
Spain,
northern Portugal,
León (province) and
Asturias). The most important city and historical capital of
Callaecia was the town of
Bracara Augusta, the modern Portuguese
Braga.
Description
The Romans gave the name
Gallaecia to the northwest part of the
Iberian peninsula after the
Gallaeci (
Greek Kallaikoi) tribe (or Gallaecians). These
Gallaeci lived in the Douro Valley with center in Cale in the area that would become the Roman town of
Portus Calle, today's
Porto. However it is not sure that there was a specific tribe called Callaeci, because the main people between Douro and Lima rivers were the
Bracari.
The wild Gallaecian
Celts make their entry in written history in the first-century epic
Punica of
Silius Italicus on the
First Punic War:
Fibrarum et pennae divinarumque sagacem
flammarum misit dives Callaecia pubem,
barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis,
nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra,
ad numerum resonas gaudentem plaudere caetras. (book III.344-7)
"Rich Gallaecia sent its youths, wise in the knowledge of divination by the entrails of beasts, by feathers and flames— who, now crying out the
barbarian song of their native tongue, now alternately stamping the ground in their rhythmic dances until the ground rang, and accompanying the playing with sonorous
caetrae" (a
caetra was a small type of
shield used in the region).
Gallaecia, as a region, was thus marked for the Romans as much for its
Celtic culture, the
culture of the castros or castreja —
hillforts of Celtic origin—as it was for the lure of its gold mines. This civilization extended over present day
Galicia, the north of
Portugal, the western part of
Asturias, the
Berço, and
Sanabria.
At a far later date, the mythic history that was encapsulated in
Lebor Gabála Érenn credited Gallaecia as the point from which the Celts sailed to conquer
Ireland, as they had Gallaecia, by force of arms.
History
Pre-Roman Gallaecia
Strabo in his Geography mentions that the ancient people called Lusitania to the lands north of river
Douro, the land that in his own time was known as Gallaecia.
Roman Gallaecia
Roman Gallaecia under Diocletian's reorganization, 293 AD
After the Punic Wars, the Romans turned their attention to conquering Hispania. The tribe of the
Gallaicoi 60,000 strong, according to
Paulus Orosius, faced the Roman forces in 137 BC in a battle at the river
Douro (, , ), which resulted in a great Roman victory, by virtue of which the Roman proconsul
Decimus Junius Brutus returned a hero, receiving the
agnomen Gallaicus ("conqueror of the Gallaicoi"). From this time, Gallaecian fighters joined the Roman legions, to serve as far away as Dacia and Britain. The final extinction of Celtic resistance was the aim of the violent and ruthless
Cantabrian Wars fought under the emperor
Octavian from 26 to 19 BC. The resistance was appalling: collective suicide rather than surrender, mothers who killed their children before committing suicide, crucified prisoners of war who sang triumphant hymns, rebellions of captives who killed their guards and returned home from
Gaul.
For Rome Gallaecia was a region formed exclusively by two
conventus—the
Lucensis and the
Bracarensis — and was distinguished clearly from other zones like the
Asturica, according to written sources:
- Legatus iuridici to per ASTURIAE ET GALLAECIAE.
- Procurator ASTURIAE ET GALLAECIAE.
- Cohors ASTURUM ET GALLAECORUM.
- Pliny: ASTURIA ET GALLAECIA
In the 3rd century,
Diocletian created an administrative division which included the
conventus of
Gallaecia,
Asturica and, perhaps,
Cluniense. This province took the name of
Gallaecia since Gallaecia was the most populous and important zone within the province. In 409, as Roman control collapsed, the
Suebi conquests transformed Roman
Gallaecia (
convents Lucense and
Bracarense) into the
kingdom of Galicia (the
Galliciense Regnum recorded by
Hydatius and
Gregory of Tours).
In
Beatus of Liébana (d. 798),
Gallaecia refers to the Christian part of the
Iberian peninsula, whereas
Hispania refers to the Muslim one. The emirs found it not worth their while to conquer these mountains filled with fighters and lacking oil or wine.
In
Charlemagne's time, bishops of Gallaecia attended the Council of Frankfurt in 794. During his residence in
Aachen, he received embassies from
Alfonso II of Asturias, according to the Frankish chronicles.
Sancho III of Navarre in 1029 refers to Vermudo III as
Imperator domus Vermudus in Gallaecia.
See also
