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54-677: The etymology of the name Raeti is uncertain. The Roman province of Raetia was named after these people. Ancient sources characterise the Raeti as Etruscan people who were displaced from the Po valley by the Gauls and took refuge in the valleys of the Alps. But it is likely that they were predominantly indigenous Alpine people. Their language, the so-called Raetian language , was probably related to Etruscan, but may not have derived from it. At least some of

108-580: A province of the Roman Empire named after the Rhaetian people . It bordered on the west with the country of the Helvetii , on the east with Noricum , on the north with Vindelicia , on the south-west with Transalpine Gaul and on the south with Venetia et Histria , a region of Roman Italy . It thus comprised the districts occupied in modern times by eastern and central Switzerland (containing

162-591: A few valleys of the Swiss canton Grisons (most of which is today German -speaking). However, a Raetian origin for Romansch is uncertain, as Rhaeto-Romance languages appear most closely related to the Gallo-Romance group, strengthening the argument that at least some of the Raeti had adopted Celtic speech before Latinisation. The evidence suggests that the original Roman district of Raetia et Vindelicia, as established under Augustus, had as its eastern border (with

216-520: A full province with the official name of Raetia et Vindelicia (abbreviated to simply Raetia in the later 1st century), while the Poenine Valley ( Canton Valais , Switz.) was separated to join the province of Alpes Graiae . Raetia was governed by an equestrian procurator . According to the epigraphic record, the early Julio-Claudian period of the Roman Empire (30 BC - AD 37) saw the formation of at least 10 auxiliary infantry regiments from

270-639: A leader at the time of their supposed "expulsion" from the Po Valley. However, eponymous founders were a common, demonstrably fabricated, origin story. (The most famous illustration of this theory is the legend that the City of Rome derives its name from Romulus , its supposed founder, while if Romulus ever existed at all (which most scholars doubt), then it would be far more likely that he derived his own name from an existing place name Roma , rather than vice versa.). Virgil [70 BC-19 BC] in his Georgics II praises

324-459: A person named 'Rhaetian' for the quality of wine grapes from the region. It is assumed from the context that he accounts it to a single person, and not the people in general. It would suggest that Virgil accounted Rhaetus to be the god-father of the Rhaetian people. It has also been suggested that the name Raeti may be connected with Reitia , a major goddess who was revered in northeast Italy and

378-561: Is attested in a number of inscriptions on votive tablets of the Veneti people. One Raetic votive tablet, from the same region, contains the word reithus , which may refer to this deity. The earliest mention of the Raeti in surviving ancient sources is in the Histories of Polybius , written before 146 BC. The Raeti, according to Pliny the Elder , were Etruscans driven into the Alps from

432-471: Is deduced to have been spoken by the Raeti based on various sources of evidence. Even if Raetian was the ancestral language of the Raeti, there is considerable uncertainty as to how widely Raetian was spoken among the tribes by the time of Augustus (ruled 30 BC - AD 14). In the Alpine region as a whole, there is evidence that the non-Celtic elements had, by the time of Augustus, been assimilated significantly by

486-463: Is heard of them till after the end of the Republic . There is little doubt, however, that they retained their independence until their subjugation in 15 BC by Tiberius and Drusus . At first Raetia formed a distinct province, but towards the end of the 1st century AD Vindelicia was added to it; hence, Tacitus ( Germania , 41) could speak of Augusta Vindelicorum ( Augsburg ) as "a colony of

540-437: Is not to be confused with the modern Romance languages of the same Alpine region, known as Rhaeto-Romance . The German linguist Helmut Rix proposed in 1998 that Rhaetic, along with Etruscan , was a member of a language family he called Tyrrhenian , and which was possibly influenced by neighboring Indo-European languages. Robert S. P. Beekes likewise does not consider it Indo-European. Howard Hayes Scullard (1967), on

594-600: Is uncertain due to scanty evidence. It is possible that their speech was also related to Etruscan, possibly a sub-group of Tyrsenian languages . Alternatively their language may have been Indo-European , akin to that of their close neighbours, the Celts or the Veneti (whose language shares several similarities with Latin and the Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other IE languages, especially Germanic and Celtic). In addition, it appears that "Raetia et Vindelicia"

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648-635: Is uncertain. It has similarities to the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna , the root of which appears to be Etruscan rasna "the people". However, it is unclear whether the Rhaetians had a similar endonym or if Raeti is an exonym (a name used by outsiders to describe the Rhaetians). The Roman geographer Pliny the Elder , writing in AD 70, suggests that the people were named after "Raetus",

702-705: The Camunni as a tribe of the Euganei people of northeast Italy, together with the Trumplini of the neighbouring valley, Val Trompia . However, neither of Pliny's comments is fatal to the identification of the Lepontii and Camunni as Raeti. The Lepontic language has been definitively classified as a distinct Continental Celtic language (e.g. Lejeune 1971, Koch 2008). As for the Euganei, their linguistic classification

756-901: The Cosuanetes and the Rucinates respectively in Augustus. However, the inscription text appears to identify the Rucinates as one of the 4 tribes of the Vindelici recorded as conquered. (But it is possible that the Strabo's Rucantii were actually another tribe, the Rugusci , in Augustus). Against Strabo, Pliny considers the Lepontii as a Celtic tribe akin to the Taurisci and classifies

810-622: The Fritzens-Sanzeno and Magrè cultures . It is clear that in the centuries leading up to Roman imperial times, the Rhaetians had at least come under Etruscan influence, as the Rhaetic inscriptions are written in what appears to be a northern variant of the Etruscan alphabet. The ancient Roman sources mention the Rhaetic people as being reputedly of Etruscan origin, so there may at least have been some ethnic Etruscans who had settled in

864-725: The Oenus ( River Inn ). During the last years of the Western Roman Empire , the land was in a desolate condition, but its occupation by the Ostrogoths in the time of Theodoric the Great , who placed it under a dux , to some extent revived its prosperity. Much of Raetia prima remained as a separate political unit, Raetia Curiensis , for several centuries, until it was attached to the Duchy of Swabia in AD 917. The land

918-651: The Po Valley by invading Gauls . This account of Raeti origins is supported by the Augustan -era Roman historian Livy . If this historiography is correct, then the displacement from the Po valley would have taken place in the period 600–400 BC, when major migrations of Celtic tribes from Gaul resulted in the Celtisation of that entire region. But the traditional "migration theory" espoused by classical authors and, until

972-608: The Raetian language , an extinct tongue known only from a series of inscriptions, written in a variant of the Etruscan alphabet . This tongue is commonly regarded by most philologists to be related to Etruscan, a non- Indo-European language which is best documented in the central Italian regions of Tuscany , northern Latium and western Umbria , and also in other Italian regions of Emilia-Romagna , Campania and Lombardy . The language has been called "Raetian" by linguists because it

1026-594: The Upper Rhine and Lake Constance ), southern Germany ( Bavaria and most of Baden-Württemberg ), Vorarlberg and the greater part of Tyrol in Austria , and part of northern Lombardy in Italy . The region of Vindelicia (today eastern Württemberg and western Bavaria) was annexed to the province at a later date than the others. The northern border of Raetia during the reigns of emperors Augustus and Tiberius

1080-424: The diocese of the vicarius Italiae , and was subdivided into Raetia prima , with a praeses at Curia Raetorum ( Chur ) and Raetia secunda , with a praeses at Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), the former corresponding to the old Raetia, the latter to Vindelicia. The boundary between them is not clearly defined, but may be stated generally as a line drawn eastwards from the lacus Brigantinus ( Lake Constance ) to

1134-464: The 1960s, by most modern scholars, is no longer considered the only possible explanation for socio-linguistic change. It is just as likely that the Raeti, if they spoke an Etruscan-like language, were Alpine indigenes who had spoken it as long as, if not longer than, the Etruscans of Etruria - especially if, as most scholars believe, Etruscan represents the pre-Indo-European base language of Italy and

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1188-439: The Alps. Alternatively, if the Alpine indigenes previously spoke a language unrelated to Etruscan, they may have adopted Etruscan through processes other than mass immigration e.g. through cultural interchange with the Etruscans of the Po valley, or as a result of "elite-transfer" by an Etruscan elite that acquired political hegemony over the Alpine tribes. The Raeti are believed by many scholars to have spoken, originally at least,

1242-596: The Danube and the Alps was occupied by Vindelici, with the Raeti confined to the Alps themselves. The latter view accords with Strabo, who records that the territory occupied by the Raeti tribes stretched from the upper reaches of the river Rhine in northern Switzerland to as far south as the cities of Como and Verona in northern Italy. The Raeti were bounded in the East by the Celtic Taurisci of Noricum and in

1296-537: The North, the Vindelici , who are regarded by most historians to have been Celtic - speakers. The territories of the two peoples were combined for administrative purposes from an early stage and eventually, under the emperor Claudius (ruled 41-54), as the province of Raetia et Vindelicia . In addition, a pair of joint Raetorum et Vindelicorum auxiliary cohorts were established under Augustus. Further support for

1350-454: The Raeti tribes (the cohortes Raetorum ). This represents some 5,000 recruits, an enormous levy from sparsely-populated Alpine valleys. It suggests that the Raeti were strongly attracted to a career in the Roman military. (See Alpine regiments of the Roman army ). Raetia Raetia or Rhaetia ( / ˈ r iː ʃ ( i ) ə / REE -sh(ee-)ə , Latin: [ˈrae̯.ti.a] ) was

1404-565: The Raeti tribes (those in northeastern Italy) probably continued to speak the Raetian language as late as the 3rd century AD. Others (those in Switzerland) were probably Celtic -speaking by the era of the Roman emperor Augustus (ruled 30 BC – AD 14). The Raeti were divided into numerous tribes, but only some of these are clearly identified in the ancient sources. The Raeti tribes, together with those of their Celtic-speaking neighbours to

1458-520: The Rhaeti in the second Iron Age being characterized by the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture , in continuity with late Bronze Age culture and early Iron Age Laugen-Melaun culture . The Raeti are not believed, archeologically, to descend from the Etruscans, as well as it is not believed plausible that the Etruscans are descended from the Rhaeti. Helmut Rix dated the end of the Proto-Tyrsenian period to

1512-661: The Roman Empire, and therefore do not feature on the Tropaeum Alpium. The Tabula clesiana for instance mentions the Anauni , Sinduni and Tulliasses . Taking those that did get named that inhabited the territories of Raetia et Vindelicia province and Venetia et Histria regio of N. Italy, and eliminating those tribes considered probably Celtic by scholars ( Medulli , Ucenni , Caturiges , Brigiani , Sogionti , Ceutrones , Uberi , Nantuates , Sedunes , Veragri ),

1566-506: The South, its border with the Italian regiones (administrative districts) of Gallia Transpadana and Venetia et Histria was roughly similar to the northern border of present-day Italy. The Vindelici were, according to Ptolemy, confined to the East of the river Licca ( Lech ), while West of that river, upper Bavaria was inhabited by Raeti. A contrary view is that the whole region between

1620-467: The Venetic goddess Reitia has commonly been discerned in the Rhaetic finds, but the two names do not seem to be linked. The spelling as Raet- is found in inscriptions, while Rhaet- was used in Roman manuscripts; it is unclear whether this Rh represents an accurate transcription of an aspirated R in Rhaetic, or is merely an error. Our understanding of Rhaetic phonology is quite uncertain, and

1674-467: The West by the Helvetii . Although the ancient sources concur in ascribing an Etruscan origin to the Raeti, they are less clear as to precisely which tribes attested in the region known as Raetia could be classified as Raeti (and whether such a classification was based on geographical location or language or cultural factors). In addition, there are considerable discrepancies in the names of tribes given by

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1728-571: The abundance of Celtic toponyms in the Rhaetian territory leads to the conclusion that, by the time of the Roman conquest, many of the Rhaetians were heavily Celticized. During the centuries of Roman rule, the Raeti became predominantly Latin -speakers. It has been suggested that a surviving relic of the Raeti's Latin speech is the Rhaeto-Romance languages , which includes the Ladin , Friulian and Romanssh languages. Romansch survives today in

1782-573: The contrary, suggested it to be an Indo-European language , with links to Illyrian and Celtic . Nevertheless, most scholars now think that Rhaetic is closely related to Etruscan within the Tyrrhenian grouping. Rix's Tyrsenian family is supported by a number of linguists such as Stefan Schumacher, Carlo De Simone , Norbert Oettinger, Simona Marchesini, and Rex E. Wallace . Common features between Etruscan, Rhaetic, and Lemnian have been observed in morphology , phonology , and syntax . On

1836-518: The following list of possible Raeti tribes results: The Raeti, together with their probably Celtic neighbours to the North, the Vindelici , were subdued by the Roman emperor Augustus ' stepsons and senior military commanders Tiberius and Drusus in a two-pronged campaign in 15 BC. Until ca. AD 100, the region was garrisoned, on its western edge (at Vindonissa from ca. AD 15), by at least one Roman legion (probably legio XIX until AD 9, when it

1890-540: The hypothesis that the northern Raeti tribes converted to Celtic speech before the Roman imperial era is provided by the distribution of Raetian inscriptions. These have been found mostly in northeastern Italy: South Tyrol , Trentino , and the Veneto region. The Raetic inscriptions indicate that Raetian survived as late as the 3rd century AD, suggesting the existence at that time of Raeti tribes, at least in northeast Italy, which had not converted to Celtic speech. In addition,

1944-407: The influx of Celtic tribes and had adopted Celtic speech. According to Livy , the "sound" of the Raeti's original Etruscan tongue ( sonum linguae ) had become corrupted as a result of inhabiting the Alps. This may indicate that at least some of the tribes lost their ancestral Raetic tongue to Celtic. Celticisation also finds support in the Roman practice of twinning the Raeti with their neighbours to

1998-459: The initial conquest. The Raeti (and the Vindelici) were obliged to pay taxes to Rome. However, their combined territory was initially organised not as a full Roman province but a military district under a Roman equestrian officer, attested as " praefectus of the Raeti, Vindelici and the Poenine Valley". It was apparently not before emperor Claudius (ruled 41-54), that the district became

2052-599: The last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC . Carlo De Simone and Simona Marchesini have proposed a much earlier date, placing the Tyrsenian language split before the Bronze Age . This would provide one explanation for the low number of lexical correspondences. * The language is documented in Northern Italy between the 5th and the 1st centuries BC by about 280 texts, in an area corresponding to

2106-630: The name of "Raetians" from an eponymous leader Raetus. Even if their Etruscan origin be accepted, at the time when the land became known to the Romans, Celtic tribes were already in possession of much of it and had amalgamated so completely with the original inhabitants that, generally speaking, the Raetians of later times may be regarded as a Celtic people, although non-Celtic tribes (es. Euganei ) were settled among them. The Raetians are first mentioned (but only incidentally) by Polybius , and little

2160-475: The north, the Vindelici , were subjugated by the Imperial Roman army in 15 BC and their territories annexed to the Roman empire . The Roman province of Raetia et Vindelicia was named after these two peoples. The Raeti tribes quickly became loyal subjects of the empire and contributed disproportionate numbers of recruits to the imperial Roman army 's auxiliary corps. The origin of the name Raeti

2214-422: The oldest Etruscan and Rhaetic inscriptions, such as in the grammatical voices of past tenses or in the endings of male gentilicia . Around 600 BC, the Rhaeti became isolated from the Etruscan area, probably by the Celts, thus limiting contacts between the two languages. Such a late datation has not enjoyed consensus, because the split would still be too recent, and in contrast with the archaeological data,

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2268-561: The other hand, few lexical correspondences are documented, at least partly due to the scanty number of Rhaetic and Lemnian texts and possibly to the early date at which the languages split. The Tyrsenian family (or Common Tyrrhenic) is often considered to be Paleo-European and to predate the arrival of Indo-European languages in southern Europe. In 2004 L. Bouke van der Meer proposed that Rhaetic could have developed from Etruscan from around 900 BC or even earlier, and no later than 700 BC, since divergences are already present in

2322-436: The province of Noricum ) the river Aenus ( Inn ) from its confluence with the Danube as far South as, and then by the river Isarcus ( Eisack ). Its northern border with the "free" German tribes was defined by the course of the upper Danube. On the West, Raetia et Vindelicia included the whole of Lake Constance and the upper Rhine valley and then a long tract westwards along the upper Rhone valley as far as Lake Leman . To

2376-605: The province of Raetia". The whole province (including Vindelicia) was at first under a military prefect , then under a procurator ; it had no standing army quartered in it but relied on its own native troops and militia for protection until the 2nd century AD. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius , Raetia was governed by the commander of the Legio III Italica , which was based in Castra Regina ( Regensburg ) by 179 AD. Under Diocletian , Raetia formed part of

2430-473: The records as one of the most powerful and warlike of the Alpine tribes. Livy states distinctly that they were of Etruscan origin (a belief that was favored by Niebuhr and Mommsen ). A tradition reported by Justin and Pliny the Elder affirmed that they were a portion of that people who had settled in the plains of the Po and were driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls , when they assumed

2484-598: The region by that time. In his Natural History (1st century AD), Pliny wrote about Alpine peoples: ... adjoining these (the Noricans ) are the Rhaeti and Vindelici . All are divided into several states. The Rhaeti are believed to be people of Etruscan race driven out by the Gauls ; their leader was named Rhaetus. Pliny's comment on a leader named Rhaetus is typical of mythologized origins of ancient peoples, and not necessarily reliable. The name of

2538-532: The sources. Some locations of the tribes recorded are uncertain, although most have been established securely by placename and personal-name evidence. Strabo names the Lepontii , Camunni (who gave their name to the Val Camonica , Lombardy , Italy), Cotuantii and Rucantii as Raeti tribes. Of these, the first two are listed with the same spelling in Augustus' inscription while the latter two are probably

2592-559: The working hypothesis is that it's very similar to Etruscan phonology . It appears that Rhaetic, like Etruscan, had a four-vowel system: /a/, /i/, /e/, /u/. Unlike Etruscan, Rhaetic does not seem to have the distinction between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. Consonant phonemes attested in Rhaetic include a dental (or palatal) affricate /ts/, dental sibilant /s/, palatal sibilant /ʃ/, nasals /n/, /m/ and liquids /r/, /l/. The following cases are attested in Rhaetic: For plural,

2646-521: Was a Tyrsenian language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which were found through northern Italy, southern Germany, eastern Switzerland, Slovenia and western Austria, in two variants of the Old Italic scripts . Rhaetic is largely accepted as being closely related to Etruscan . The ancient Rhaetic language

2700-443: Was also inhabited by a number of non-Raetic tribes. The Breuni and Genauni are classified as Illyrian by Strabo, while a number of tribes in the region have plausible Celtic etymologies: e.g. Caturiges from catu- ("fight" or "warriors") and Nantuates from nantu- ("valley") respectively. The Tropaeum Alpium inscription contains the names of 45 Alpine tribes. The Raetic tribes south of Meran were peacefully integrated into

2754-522: Was destroyed in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ). In addition, Roman auxiliary forces and leves armaturae ("light troops", probably a local militia) were stationed there. But these forces were mainly for security against external threats, not internal unrest. Strabo wrote that the Alpine tribes as a whole adapted easily to Roman rule and had not rebelled in the 33 years that had elapsed since

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2808-720: Was the River Danube . Later the Limes Germanicus marked the northern boundary, stretching for 166 km north of the Danube. Raetia was connected to Italy across the Alps over the Reschen Pass , by the Via Claudia Augusta . The capital of the province was Augusta Vindelicorum , present-day Augsburg in southern Germany. Little is known of the origin or history of the Raetians , who appear in

2862-584: Was traversed by two great lines of Roman roads: the Via Claudia Augusta leading from Verona and Tridentum across the Reschen Pass to the Fern Pass and thence to Augusta Vindelicorum ( Augsburg ), the other from Brigantium ( Bregenz ) on Lake Constance by Chur and Chiavenna to Como and Milan . The Rätikon mountain range derives its name from Raetia. 47°21′36″N 8°33′36″E  /  47.3600°N 8.5600°E  / 47.3600; 8.5600 Raetian language Rhaetic or Raetic ( / ˈ r iː t ɪ k / ), also known as Rhaetian ,

2916-544: Was very mountainous, and the inhabitants, when not engaged in predatory expeditions, chiefly supported themselves by breeding cattle and cutting timber, little attention being paid to agriculture. Some of the valleys, however, were rich and fertile, and produced wine, which was considered equal to any in Italia . Augustus preferred Raetian wine to any other. Considerable trade in pitch , honey , wax , and cheese occurred. The chief towns of Raetia (excluding Vindelicia) were Tridentum ( Trento ) and Curia (Coire or Chur ). It

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