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Varduli

The Varduli were a pre-Roman tribe[1] settled in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, in what today is the western region of the Basque Country.

The Iberian Peninsula in the 3rd Century BC, the Varduli are in the northern region, close to the Pyrenees, in a Celt-Aquitanian "mixed" area.

Their historical territory corresponds with current Basque area; however, it is debated whether the Varduli were actually Aquitanians, related to the Vascones,[2] or Celtized tribes, related to Cantabri or Celtiberians[3] and which later underwent Basquisation.[4] Anyhow, it's apparently assumable the proto-Basque rooted cultural-ethnic relation among the people of this region.

Etymology edit

Their ethnonym Varduli is connected with an area that is referred to in documents from the early Middle Ages as Bardulia, which is mentioned to the cradle of Old Castile, as a result of the decline of the Navarrese Kingdom.

Julio Caro Baroja, a Basque anthropologist and linguist appointed on his works that the term Varduli wasn't of Basque origin.[5]

History edit

The Varduli are mentioned for the first time during Roman times, by Strabo, who called them Bardyetai, and placed them in the Basque coast, between the Cantabri and Vascones; they are also mentioned by the geographer Ptolemy, who placed them roughly in present-day Gipuzkoa, and by Roman historians, notably Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia,[6] where he reported that Amanum Portus (Roman name: Flaviobriga), present-day Castro Urdiales, was a Varduli settlement. The Roman geographer Pomponius Mela located them also in the coast, west of the Vascones and east of the Caristii. This lack of agreement about their exact position may have been caused by the continuous movement of the tribes of the northern Iberian Peninsula during events such as the Cantabrian Wars. The first census of the Varduli population took place under the orders of Augustus.[7]

According to Pliny the Elder,[8][9] the main Vardulian settlement was Tullonium,[8] that was in the actual Zadorra river basin, on a main Roman road from Virovesca (capital of the Autrigones), to Pompaelo (Pamplona or Iruña) in Vasconian land. According to several Classical antiquity authors such as Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela[9] other Vardulian cities were Alba and Gebala (today's Gebara), in the inland; while Tritium Tuboricum, a little west of the Deba river (Deva, Deua or Deba = Goddess), Menosca and Morogi or Morosgi, were on the Atlantic coast (on the south coast of the Bay of Biscay).

In 114 BC, Gaius Marius had a personal guard made by Varduli people, who were called Barduaioí slaves in Rome. By the year 44, and according to Pomponius Mela, the Varduli inhabited lands close to the Pyrenees and composed a united society. The defeat of the Cantabri against Augustus did not have any effect on the Varduli, as they had not joined the wars. The Varduli served in cohorts in the invasion of Britannia: Varduli are mentioned in an inscription on a Roman altar at Rochester, (Roman Bremenium) and at Milecastle 19 along Hadrian's Wall an altar inscription made by members of the First Cohort of Varduli, cavalrymen, is one of the few dedications to the Matres, or mother goddesses, found in Roman Britain. The First Cohort of Varduli are also mentioned in inscriptions at the Antonine Wall, Longovicium in Durham, Bremenium and Corstopitum in Northumberland and on the Dere Street in Cappuck in the Scottish Borders.[10]

As with the Caristii, it's not totally clear whether the Varduli were an Aquitanian tribe or a Celtized one, related to the Cantabri and Celtiberians. Some of their Toponyms were clearly of Indo-European origin (probably Proto-Celtic language), as Uxama (comes from Upsama, meaning "the highest"), Deobriga (comes from Deiuo-Briga, meaning "holy hill"), Tullonium (comes from Tullo, meaning "valley"), among others. Hydronyms, such as Deva (Deua or Deba for "Goddess") were also considered of Indo-European etymology. As with the Caristii, not a single toponym related to the Aquitanian-Basque languages has been found, further proving the theory of their Celtic origin and possible late Basquisation.[2][3][4] However, but for a few exceptions (Deba, Zegama, Arakama) present-day place-names show a clear prevalence of the Basque linguistic element (sometimes mixed with Latin-Romanced lexical roots).

The last reference to the Varduli appears on a chronicle from Hydatius, where he narrates the devastations that suffered the Heruli when they attacked in the year 400 the Cantabrian coast and again in 456 after attacking Bardulia.

Ad sedes propias redeuntes, Cantabriarum et Vardaliarum loca maritima crudelissime deproedatio sunt.

— Fontes Hispaniae Antiquae, IX, p. 74

Later in the next century, Saxons established on the Bordeaux estuary also were known to raid along the coast.

Some studies theorize that the Varduli had a late Basquisation process, as a result of the continuous progress of the Vascones on their territory. They are mentioned again in the Early Middle Ages and their place appeared the precursors of the modern Basque province of Gipuzkoa. Other authors[11] guessed, following Classical threads, the existence of somewhat ethnic, cultural or political affinity between the Vardulii, the Caristii and the Autrigones, tribes who, later roman sources, would grouped under the name Varduli; this would explain all the later events on this region, for example, why once the Caristii and Varduli were moved out of their original territories by the Vascones in the Early Middle Ages, the Caristii and Autrigones lost their names and were grouped together with the Varduli over the territory of the Autrigones who took refuge in their coastal areas behind the mountains from the Islamic military depredations from the Al-andalus new powers down the Ebro, which passed to be made after a century of resettlement into the Meseta plains as a frontier march or county of the Kingdom of Asturias in the middle years of the 8th century, the original one called Castile. The union, whichever the causes, between Varduli, Caristii and Autrigones on a unique territory would later create the blur County of Bardulia, mentioned as part of the craddle of proto-castile.

The coat of arms of the Basque province of Gipuzkoa reads "Fidelissima Bardulia, Nunquam Superata",[12] meaning "Most loyal Bardulia, never conquered".

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ John James Van Nostrand Jr, "The reorganization of Spain by Augustus" University of California Publications in History 4, 1916:122ff
  2. ^ a b Localización de algunas ciudades várdulas citadas por Mela y Ptolomeo Ildefonso Gurruchaga[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ a b El puerto romano de Irun Mercedes Urteaga
  4. ^ a b "Ethnic map of the Iberian Peninsula after the Second Punic War". Archived from the original on 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2012-07-30.
  5. ^ Caro Baroja, Julio. Los pueblos de España, 1976.
  6. ^ "In Cluniensem conventum Varduli ducunt populos xiiii" (Pliny iii.26); "A Pyranaeo per oceanum Vasconum saltus, Olarso, Vardulorum oppida..." iv.110.
  7. ^ CIL vi, 1463, noted by Van Nostrand 1916:123.
  8. ^ a b Book III, 26, 27, Book IV, 110
  9. ^ a b "Foto 41028101.gif - Auñamendi Eusko Entziklopedia".
  10. ^ "BREMENIVM Roman Fort & Marching Camps". Roman Britain Organisation. Archived from the original on 14 April 2012. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
  11. ^ http://www.euskomedia.org/PDFAnlt/congresos/07217221.pdf [dead link]
  12. ^ Juntas Generales de Gipuzkoa - Escudo y bandera

Bibliography edit

  • 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
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