Agesinates
The Agesinates or Cambolectri Agessinates were an ancient Celtic tribe living in Gallia Aquitania during the Roman period.
Name
[edit]They are mentioned as Cambolectri Agessinates by Pliny (1st c. AD).[1][2]
The ethnic name Cambolectri derives from the Gaulish stem cambo- ('curve, meander').[3] The second element -lectri is also attested in a Celtic personal name (Lictoria, Lectri).[4][5]
Pliny also refers to another group of Cambolectri that was "surnamed Atlantici" (Cambolectri qui Atlantici cognominantur), which he locates in Gallia Narbonensis.[6][5] It is unclear whether this designation refers to another faction of the same people, implying a division between the two provinces, or to a distinct people altogether.[5] Michel Molin has suggested that this double mention may reflect a border civitas that either belonged alternately to eatch province, or was divided between them, as was the case with the Ruteni.[5]
Geography
[edit]Their exact location remains uncertain. Pliny places them in Gallia Aquitania, alongside the Vasates (Vassei) and Sennates.[2]
| Text (Loeb) | Translation (Loeb) | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Aquitanicae sunt [...] Vassei, Sennates, Cambolectri Agessinates. Pictonibus iuncti autem Bituriges liberi qui Cubi appellantur [...] | To Aquitanian Gaul belong the [...] Vassei, Sennates and the Cambolectri Agessinates. Joining on to the Pictones are the Bituriges called Cubi (free) [...] | Pliny, IV, XIX, 108 |
Pierre-Marie Duval proposed situating the territory of the Cambolectri Agessinates on the lower or middle Garonne river.[7][5] Duval maintains that placing the Agessinates near the Pictones, with Aizenai (Bas-Poitou) as their chief town, as proposed by Alfred Holder, would require an implausible syntactic linkage in Pliny's text. He further notes that the suffix -ates, which is particularly frequent in Aquitania compared to the rest of Gaul, more more plausibly supports this location than an attribution north of the Garonne.[8]
References
[edit]- ^ Pliny, IV 109.
- ^ a b Duval 1989, p. 729.
- ^ Delamarre 2003, p. 100.
- ^ Duval 1989, p. 730.
- ^ a b c d e Molin 2006.
- ^ Pliny, III 37.
- ^ Duval 1989, pp. 732–733.
- ^ Duval 1989, pp. 730–733.
Secondary sources
[edit]- Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Errance. ISBN 978-2-87772-369-5.
- Duval, Paul-Marie (1989). "Les peuples de l'Aquitaine d'après la liste de Pline". Publications de l'École française de Rome. 116 (1): 721–737.
- Molin, Michel (2006). "Sur un mystérieux dévot de Mars Loucetius à Iuliomagus". In Haudrère, Philippe (ed.). Pour une histoire sociale des villes : Mélanges offerts à Jacques Maillard. Presses universitaires de Rennes. pp. 373–380. ISBN 978-2-7535-2341-8.
