Arecomici

The Arecomici (or Volcae Arecomici) were a Gallic tribe attested by the 1st century BC. They dwelled between the Rhône and the Hérault rivers, around Nemausus (present-day Nîmes).[1][2]

Name

The meaning of the name Arecomici is unclear.[1] The Gaulish suffix are- meant 'forward', but the translation of the second element, comici, is unknown.[1] The name Volcae stems from Gaulish uolcos ('hawk').[3]

History

The Volcae Arecomici were probably first officially recognized, or defined, by Rome as an entity around 75 BC.[4] According to anthropologist Michael Dietler, the Roman colonization of the region, which led to the organization of Nemausus as a colonia Latina in the late 1st century AD, "resulted in the ethnogenesis of the Volcae Arecomici out of a formerly fluid coalition of different polities and ethnic groups".[5]

They were indeed part of a political confederation encompassing multiple smaller tribes. In the early first century AD, the Volcae Arecomici were the dominant force of the confederation, ruling over twenty-four subject towns (oppida ignobilia) from their new capital Nemausus.[6]

Economy

Coins with the legend "Volcae Arecomici" (AR/VOLC or VOLC/AREC) are dated to 70 BC, after the Roman conquest and the first emissions of coins at Nemausus.[7]

References
  1. Nègre 1990, p. 151.
  2. Dietler 2015, p. 88.
  3. Delamarre 2003, p. 327.
  4. Dietler 2015, p. 359.
  5. Dietler 2015, p. 90.
  6. Dietler 2015, pp. 88–89.
  7. Dietler 2015, p. 91.

Bibliography
  • Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental (in French). Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Dietler, Michael (2015). Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-28757-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Nègre, Ernest (1990). Toponymie générale de la France (in French). Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02883-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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