Marici (tribe)
The Marici were a Celto-Ligurian tribe dwelling around present-day Pavia (Lombardy) during the Iron Age.
Name
[edit source]The ethnic name Marici can be translated as 'the big ones', from the Celtic stem maro- ('tall'). According to Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, such linguistically Celtic tribal names suggest that a Celto-Ligurian dialect played an important role among the languages spoken in ancient Ligury.[1]
Geography
[edit source]The Marici lived around the modern town of Pavia. The Barrington Atlas locates their territory south of the Laevi, east of the Iadatini, west of the Cenomani, north of the Anamares.[2]
History
[edit source]In the Third Book of his Natural History, Pliny the Elder identifies them as the co-founders, along with the Laevi, of Ticinum, the modern Pavia.[3]
References
[edit source]- ↑ de Bernardo Stempel 2006, p. 46.
- ↑ Talbert 2000, Map 39: Mediolanum.
- ↑ The text, in Philemon Holland’s 1601 English translation, is available online at https://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny3.html
Bibliography
[edit source]- de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (2006). "From Ligury to Spain: Unaccented *yo > (y)e in Narbonensic votives ('gaulish' DEKANTEM), Hispanic coins ('iberian' -(sk)en) and some theonyms". Palaeohispanica. 6: 45–58. ISSN 1578-5386.
- Talbert, Richard J. A. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691031699.
