Arevaci

The Arevaci or Aravaci (Arevakos, Arvatkos or Areukas in the Greek sources[1]), were a Celtic[2][3] people who settled in the central Meseta of northern Hispania and dominated most of Celtiberia from the 4th to late 2nd centuries BC.

They founded or seized several important city-states (Civitates) in northern Celtiberia, namely: Other towns often mentioned in the sources, such as Segovia, Ocilis, Comfluenta, Tucris, Lutia, Mallia, Lagni and Colenda have not yet been located.

[1][8][9][10] They shared with the Vaccaei the same social structure of collectivist type which enabled the latter to exploit successfully the wheat- and grass-growing areas of the western plateau,[11] though archeological evidence suggests that the Arevaci were predominantly stock-raisers who practiced transhumance in the grazing lowlands of the upper Ebro valley.

[12] They practised the rite of excarnation by exposing the corpses of warriors slain in battle to the vultures, as described by Silius Italicus[13] and Claudius Aelianus,[14] and attested by funerary stelae and painted pottery from Numantia.

[19] With the fall of Numantia in 134-133 BC, the Romans forcibly disbanded the Celtiberian confederacy and allowed the Pellendones and Uraci to regain their independence from the Arevaci, who were now technically submitted and absorbed into Hispania Citerior province.

Although the Arevaci later, in 29 BC, contributed an auxiliary cavalry unit (the Ala Hispanorum Aravacorum) to fight alongside the Roman legions in the first Astur-Cantabrian war, Tacitus[28] cites heavy taxation as the major reason for a revolt in the Termes region which resulted in the ambush and assassination of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Praetor of H. Citerior in 25 AD.