Bigerriones
Ancient people of Aquitania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bigerriones or Begerri were a people of Aquitania, in the Bigorre at the northern foot of the Pyrenees.[1] They were named by Caesar among the peoples who submitted to Publius Crassus in 56 BC, and by Pliny as the Begerri.[2] Their name survives in that of the Bigorre.[3]
Name
Caesar names the people Bigerriones in his account of the Aquitanian campaign of 56 BC.[4][1] Pliny lists them as the Begerri, with the variants Begerbi, Bebergi and Bergebi.[5][1] Paul-Marie Duval takes the two for one people.[1] In both lists they appear in association with the Tarbelli.[6]
The Bigorre region, attested as Begorra ca. 400 AD, is named after the tribe.[7] Gregory of Tours records the civitas Begorra in 587.[8]
Geography
The Bigerriones held the Bigorre region, the plain around Tarbes in the northern foreland of the Pyrenees.[2] The Adour formed the backbone of their territory.[9] Their original lands probably covered much of the later civitas, which took in the Lavedan and the upper valley of the Adour.[10] To the east, their boundary with the Convenae has been set short of the Vallée d'Aure.[10]
The seat of the late civitas has been disputed. The Notitia Galliarum reads civitas Turba ubi castrum Bigorra, the "city of Turba (Tarbes) where the fort of Bigorra (Saint-Lézer) stood".[11] Ferdinand Lot held the text corrupt and would read civitas Bigorra ubi castrum Tarba, identifying the chief town Bigorra with Saint-Lézer and Tarbes with their hillfort.[12] Jean-Pierre Bost keeps the text as it stands, and takes Tarbes to be their chief town from the 1st century onward.[11] Philippe Gardes likewise identify the castrum Bigorra of the Notitia Galliarum with the Roman fort of Saint-Lézer.[13]
History
In 56 BC the legate Publius Crassus subdued Aquitania for Caesar, and the Bigerriones were among the peoples who then sent hostages.[1] Under the Empire they were among the Aquitanian peoples that left the most inscriptions, with some sixteen to their name.[14]
Settlement and material culture
About a dozen fortified sites are known in the territory of the Bigerriones, some of them strung along the plateau edges above the valley of the Adour.[9] The chief one is the spur of Castetbielh at Saint-Lézer, an enclosure of some 7 hectares commanding the Adour.[13] No protohistoric rampart survives, but the ancient wall and the later motte are thought to have partly reused its line.[15] At Tarbes, traces of early occupation point to an open settlement in the plain, perhaps at the origin of the Roman town.[9]