Sotiates

The Sotiates were a Gallic-Aquitani tribe dwelling in the region surrounding the modern town of Sos (Lot-et-Garonne) during the Iron Age and the Roman period.

The Sotiates, with the confidence of previous victories, felt that upon their own courage depended the safety of all Aquitania: the Romans were eager to have it seen what they could accomplish under a young leader without the commander-in-chief and the rest of the legions.

In the mid-first century BC, led by their chief Adiatuanos, the Sotiates fought alone against the Roman armies of Crassus, whereas other Aquitani tribes had formed a coalition against the foreign invader.

[11] Furthermore, the name Adiatuanos is probably related to the Gaulish root adiantu- ('eagerness, desire, ambition'; perhaps cognate with the Middle Welsh add-iant 'wish'), and thus may be translated as 'zealously striving (for rulership)'.

[12][10][13]Caesar mentions that their chief was protected by a troop of 600 men named soldurii, which could be a Latinized form of Gaulish *soldurio- ('body-guard, loyal, devoted') according to Xavier Delamarre and Pierre-Yves Lambert.

[14][15] Theo Vennemann argues on the contrary that the term may be of Aquitanian (Vasconic) origin, since it is used by the local people (illi), and that the first element of sol-durii could be related to the Basque zor ('debt').

[16] In any case, the soldurii of Adiatuanos were probably involved in a patron-client relationship that has been compared to the Gallic ambactus, and the size of his army (600 men) illustrates the concentration of a personal power ruling over different clans.

A sword found in a funeral near Sotiatum, dated to the 3rd century BC, attests the diffusion of prestigious items of Celtic (La Tène) type among the local population.

Aquitani tribes at both sides of the Pyrenees.
The campaign of Crassus in 56 BC.
Drachma minted by the Sotiates, dated to the 2nd–1st century BC.