Tricastini

They are first mentioned in Livy's legendary narration of Bellovesus' expedition from Gaul into Italy, then in his historical account of Hannibal's crossing of the Alps in 218 BC, when the Tricastini let the Carthaginian troops move across their land.

The insertion of an epenthetic r that changed Tricastini to Tricastrini, a form attested by the 12th century, caused a semantic reinterpretation of the name, leading eventually to the modern French Trois-Châteaux, meaning "three-castles" (Latin Tria-Castra).

[10][13] Some scholars have proposed that the original territory of the Tricastini was located further east of their attested homeland, in a mountainous region near the settlement of Altonum (Le Pègue).

[18][19] The site of Barry was located on a commercially strategic position in the Rhône Valley, a natural corridor linking the Greek colony of Massalia to northern Gaul.

[15] In the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy mentioned a Noiomagos ("new market") as the capital of the Tricastini, but this is probably a confusion with modern Nyons, in Vocontian lands, which was known as Noviomagos in ancient times.

In this view, the double toponym may suggest that the settlement was originally founded during the Republican period, before it took its attested name under Augustus (27 BC–14 AD), although available archaeological evidence do not predate the late 1st century BC.

Taking out with him the surplus population of his tribes, the Bituriges, Arverni, Senones, Haedui, Ambarri, Carnutes, and Aulerci, he marched with vast numbers of infantry and cavalry into the country of the Tricastini.Since the myth was probably based on historical events,[28][29] this could indicate that the Tricastini were already living in Gaul, possibly near their attested homeland, at the time of the Battle of the Allia (387 BC), from which the legend is apparently inspired,[30][14][8] although the tribal names may also have been taken from names current at the time of Livy.

Although it is attested in the Roman era, the name is not affected by the Gaulish -st- > -ss- sound shift, which suggests a fossilization of the ancestral ethnonym, possibly in a mountainous area.

[8] In Livy's account of Hannibal's crossing of the Alps in 218 BC, the Carthaginian general is said to have "veered to the left into the lands of the Tricastini" after setting a dispute between Allobrogian chieftains.