Ligures

[3][4] They inhabited also the French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Corsica;[5][6][7][8] however, it is generally believed that around 2000 BC the Ligurians occupied a much larger area, extending as far as what is today Catalonia (in the north-eastern corner of the Iberian Peninsula).

[16] The geography of Strabo, from book 2, chapter 5, section 28 : The Alps are inhabited by numerous nations, but all Keltic with the exception of the Ligurians, and these, though of a different race, closely resemble them in their manner of life.

[19]Transalpine Ligures are said to have inhabited the South Eastern portion of modern France, between the Alps and the Rhone river, from where they constantly battled against the Greek colony of Massalia.

[7] But though the early writers of the Greeks call the Sallyes "Ligures", and the country which the Massiliotes hold, "Ligustica," later writers name them "Celtoligures," and attach to their territory all the level country as far as Luerio and the Rhodanus,[6]Copper begins to be mined from the middle of the 4th millennium BC in Liguria with the Libiola and Monte Loreto mines dated to 3700 BC.

[20] It was during this period of the Copper Age in Italy that we find throughout Liguria a large number of anthropomorphic stelae in addition to rock engravings.

[27] The Ligurians are credited with forming the first villages in the Po Valley of the facies of the pile dwellings and of the dammed settlements,[28] a society that followed the Polada culture, and is well suited in middle and late Bronze Age.

[31] This myth seems to have a grain of truth, because recent archaeological excavations have unearthed remains of a settlement dating back to 1200 BC that scholars presume to have been built and inhabited by Ligures.

The hostilities were opened in 238 BC by a coalition of Ligurians and Boii Gauls, but the two peoples soon found themselves in disagreement and the military campaign came to a halt with the dissolution of the alliance.

Other Ligurians enlisted in the army of Hasdrubal Barca, when he arrived in Cisalpine Gaul (207 BC), in an attempt to rejoin the troops of his brother Hannibal.

In the port of Savo (modern-day Savona), then capital of the Ligures Sabazi, triremes of the Carthaginian fleet of Mago Barca, brother of Hannibal, which were intended to cut the Roman trade routes in the Tyrrhenian Sea, found shelter.

[57] In 200 BC, the Ligures and Boii sacked and destroyed the Roman colony of Placentia, effectively controlling the most important ford of the Po Valley.

[60] It was only in 197 BC that the Romans, under the leadership of Minucius Rufus, succeeded in regaining control of the Placentia area by subduing the Celelates, Cerdicates, Ilvati and the Boii Gauls and occupying the oppidum of Clastidium.

[49] A second phase of the conflict followed (197-155 BC), characterized by the fact that the Apuani Ligurians entrenched themselves on the Apennines, from where they periodically descended to plunder the surrounding territories.

The Romans, for their part, organized continuous expeditions to the mountains, hoping to surround and defeat the Ligurians (taking care not to be destroyed by ambushes).

[54] Historically, the beginning of the campaign dates back to 193 BC on the initiative of the Ligurian conciliabula (federations), who organized a major raid going as far as the right bank of the river Arno.

It is thought that the place of the battle and the death of the consul gave rise to the place-name of Marciaso, or that of the Canal of March on Mount Caprione in the town of Lerici (near the ruins of the city of Luni), which was later founded by the Romans.

[74] During the Iron Age the spoken language, the main divinities and the workmanship of the artifacts unearthed in the area of Liguria (such as the numerous torcs found) were similar to those of Celtic culture in both style and type.

[75] Karl Müllenhoff, professor of Germanic antiquities at the Universities of Kiel and Berlin, studying the sources of the Ora maritima by Avienius (a Latin poet who lived in the 4th century AD, but who used as a source for his own work a Phoenician Periplum of the 6th century BC),[76] held that the name 'Ligurians' generically referred to various peoples who lived in western Europe, including the Celts, but thought the "real Ligurians" were a Pre-Indo-European population.

[77] Italian geologist and paleontologist Arturo Issel considered Ligurians to be direct descendants of the Cro-Magnon people that lived throughout Gaul from the Mesolithic period.

[79] Julius Pokorny adapted the Celto-Ligurian hypothesis into one linking the Ligures to the Illyrians, citing an array of similar evidence from Eastern Europe.

[81] Today some accounts suggest that the Ligures represented the northern branch of an ethno-linguistic layer older than and very different from the proto-Italic peoples.

In general, it is believed that the Ligurian religion was rather primitive, addressed to supernatural tutelary gods, representing the great forces of nature,[90] and from which you could get help and protection through their divination.

[91] Diodorus Siculus reports the use of a tunic tightened at the waist by a leather belt and closed by a clasp generally bronze; the legs were bare.

The armament varied according to the class and the comfort of the owner, in general however the great mass of the Ligurian warriors was substantially light infantry, armed in a poor way.

[93][95] The main weapon was the spear, with cusps that could exceed a cubit (about 45 cm, or one and half foot ), followed by the sword, of Gallic shape (sometimes cheap because made with soft metals), very rarely the warriors were equipped with bows and arrows.

The protection was entrusted to an oblong shield of wood,[96] always of Celtic typology (but to difference of this last one without metallic boss)[97] and a simple helmet, of Montefortino type.

The horned helmets, recovered in the Apuani tribe area, were probably used only for ceremonial purpose and they were worn by warchief, to underline their virility and military skills.

[98] Strabo and Diodorus Siculus say they fought mostly on foot, because of the nature of their territory, but their phrasing implies that cavalry was not entirely unknown, and two recently discovered Ligurian graves have included harness fittings.

[47][100] The Ingauni, a tribe of sailors located around Albingaunum (nowadays Albenga) were famous to engage trade and piracy, hostiles to Rome,[101] they were subdued by consul Lucius Emilius Paullus Macedonicus in 181 BC.

However, even if they have to fight with so many misfortunes, by means of stubborn work they go beyond nature [...] they often give themselves to hunting, and finding quantities of savage, with it they make up for the lack of bladders; and so it comes, that flowing through their snow-covered mountains, and getting used to practicing then more difficult places of the thickets, they harden their bodies, and strengthen their muscles admirably.