The Sotiates were a Gallic-

Aquitani The Aquitani were a tribe that lived in the region between the Pyrenees, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Garonne, in present-day southwestern France in the 1st century BC. The Romans dubbed this region '' Gallia Aquitania''. Classical authors suc ...

tribe dwelling in the region surrounding the modern town of

Sos SOS is a Morse code distress signal (), used internationally, originally established for maritime use. In formal notation SOS is written with an overscore line (), to indicate that the Morse code equivalents for the individual letters of "SOS" a ...

(

Lot-et-Garonne Lot-et-Garonne (, ) is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of Southwestern France. Named after the rivers Lot and Garonne, it had a population of 331,271 in 2019.Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and the

Roman period The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

. They were subjugated in 56 BC by the Roman forces of

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war. He ...

legatus A legate (Latin: , ) was a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Roman army, equivalent to a high-ranking general officer of modern times. Initially used to delegate power, the term became formalised under Augustus as the officer in comman ...

P. Licinius Crassus.

Name

They are mentioned as ''Sotiates'' (var. ''sontiates'', ''sociates'') by

(mid-1st c. BC), and as ''Sottiates'' by Pliny (1st c. AD)., s.v. ''Sotiates'' and ''Sotium''. The meaning of the

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

''Sotiates'' remains unclear. The suffix is possibly the

Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...

-''ates'' ('belonging to'), which appears in the names of many Gallic tribes across Europe (e.g., ''

Atrebates The Atrebates (Gaulish: *''Atrebatis'', 'dwellers, land-owners, possessors of the soil') were a Belgic tribe of the Iron Age and the Roman period, originally dwelling in the Artois region. After the tribes of Gallia Belgica were defeated by Ca ...

'', '' Nantuates'', ''Caeracates''). The origin of the first element ''Soti-'' is still unknown. The city of

, attested in the 1st c. BC as ''oppidum Sotiatum'' ('

oppidum An ''oppidum'' (: ''oppida'') is a large fortified Iron Age Europe, Iron Age settlement or town. ''Oppida'' are primarily associated with the Celts, Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread acros ...

of the Sotiates'; ''archidiaconatus Socientis'' in the late 13th c. AD) is named after the ancient tribe.

Geography

The Sotiates dwelled north of the Elusates and Tarusates, south of the Oscidates, west of the Lactorates, and east of the Cocosates. Their pre-Roman chief town was the ''

'' ''Sotiatum'' (''Sot(t)ium''; modern

), located at the confluence of the Gueyze and Gélise rivers.

History

The Sotiates are mentioned in two classical sources:

's '' Bellum Gallicum'' and

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history of ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

's ''History of Rome''.

Gallic Wars (58–50 BC)

In 56 BC, the Sotiates were led by their chief Adiatuanos in the defence of their oppidum against the Roman officer P. Licinius Crassus. After a failed sortie attempt with 600 of his ''soldurii'', Adiatuanos had to capitulate to the Romans.

Culture

The ethnic identity of the Sotiates is debated. Their lifestyle was very similar to that of the

Gauls The Gauls (; , ''Galátai'') were a group of Celts, Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age Europe, Iron Age and the Roman Gaul, Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). Th ...

, which led some scholars to postulate that they were originally a Gallic people that had settled at the frontier of

Aquitania Gallia Aquitania (, ), also known as Aquitaine or Aquitaine Gaul, was a province of the Roman Empire. It lies in present-day southwest France and the comarca of Val d'Aran in northeast Spain, where it gives its name to the modern region of Aquit ...

. In the mid-first century BC, led by their chief Adiatuanos, the Sotiates fought alone against the Roman armies of

Crassus Marcus Licinius Crassus (; 115–53 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is often called "the richest man in Rome". Wallechinsky, David & Walla ...

, whereas other Aquitani tribes had formed a coalition against the foreign invader. Furthermore, the name ''Adiatuanos'' is probably related to the

root ''adiantu-'' ('eagerness, desire, ambition'; perhaps

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

with the

Middle Welsh Middle Welsh (, ) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh (). Literature and history Middle Welsh is ...

''add-iant'' 'wish'), and thus may be translated as 'zealously striving (for rulership)'.

mentions that their chief was protected by a troop of 600 men named ''soldurii'', which could be a Latinized form of

*''soldurio-'' ('body-guard, loyal, devoted') according to Xavier Delamarre and

Pierre-Yves Lambert Pierre-Yves Lambert (born 30 May 1949) is a French linguist and scholar of Celtic studies. He is a researcher at the CNRS and a lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Celtic linguistics and philology. Lambert is the director of the j ...

Theo Vennemann Theo Vennemann genannt Nierfeld (; born 27 May 1937) is a German historical linguist known for his controversial theories of a " Vasconic" and an " Atlantic" stratum in European languages, published since the 1990s. He was professor of Germa ...

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 Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

''zor'' ('debt'). 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. The Sotiates may be also interpreted as an Aquitanian tribe that had been Celticized before Caesar's coming in the region. 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. Joaquín Gorrochategui notes that the province of Aquitania experienced "a profound Gallic influence, which becomes more evident as one moves away from the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

northwards and eastwards. Evidence of this penetration are the names of Gallic persons and deities, the names of tribes in ''-ates'', and later the Romance toponyms in ''-ac''".

References

Aquitani Gauls

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * {{Gallic peoples