Gallia Aquitania - Gallia Aquitania and Rome

Gallia Aquitania and Rome

Gaul as a nation was not a natural unit (Caesar differentiated between proper gauls (Celtae), Belgae and Aquitani). In order to protect the route to Spain, Rome helped Massalia (Marseille) against bordering tribes. Following this intervention, the Romans conquered what they called Provincia, or the ‘Province’ in 121 BC. Provincia extended from the Mediterranean to Lake Geneva, and was later known as Narbonensis with its capital at Narbo. Some of the region falls into modern Provence, still recalling the Roman name.

The main struggle (58–50 BC) against the Romans came against Julius Caesar under Vercingetorix at Battle of Gergovia (a city of the Arverni) and at the Battle of Alesia (a city of the Mandubii). The Gaulish commander was captured at the siege of Alesia and the war ended. Caesar seized the remainder of Gaul, justifying his conquest by playing on Roman memories of savage attacks over the Alps by Celts and Germans. Italy was now to be defended from the Rhine.

Caesar named Aquitania the triangle shaped territory between the Ocean, the Pyrenees and the Garonne river. He fought and almost completely subdued them in 56 BC after Publius Crassus's military exploits assisted by Celtic allies. New rebellions ensued anyway up to 27-28 BC, with Agrippa gaining a great victory over the Gauls of Aquitania in 38 BC. It was the smallest region of all three mentioned above, following that a land extension stretching to the Loire River was added by Augustus, with the council of the gaulish aristocracy. This reorganization took place after the census conducted in 27 BC, based on Agrippa's observations of language, race and community according to some sources. At this point, Aquitania along with Narbonensis, Lugdunensis and Belgica now made up Gallia and became an imperial province. Aquitania lay under the command of a former Praetor, and hosted no legions.

More so than Caesar, Strabo insists that the primeval Aquitani differ from the other Gauls not just in language, institutions and laws ("lingua institutis legibusque discrepontes") but in body make-up too, deeming them more close to the Iberians. The administrative boundaries set up by Augustus comprising both proper Celtic tribes and primeval Aquitani remained unaltered until Diocletian's new administrative reorganization (see below).

The Arverni often warred against the Romans with as many as two to four hundred thousand men. Two hundred thousand fought against Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus and against Domitius Ahenobarbus (Domitian). The Arverni not only had extended their empire as far as Narbo and the boundaries of Massiliotis, but they were also masters of the tribes as far as the Pyrenees, and as far as the ocean and the Rhenus (Rhine).