Pre-Roman Callaecia Strabo in his
Geography lists the people of the northwestern Atlantic coast of Iberia as follows: ... then the Vettonians and the Vaccaeans, through whose territory the Durius [Douro] River flows, which affords a crossing at Acutia, a city of the Vaccaeans; and last, the Callaicans, [Gallaicans] who occupy a very considerable part of the mountainous country. For this reason, since they were very hard to fight with, the Callaicans themselves have not only furnished the surname for the man who defeated the Lusitanians [meaning
Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus, Roman general] but they have also brought it about that now, already, most of the Lusitanians are called Callaicans.
Roman Callaecia After the Punic Wars, the Romans turned their attention to conquering Hispania. The tribe of the
Callaeci 60,000 strong, according to
Paulus Orosius, faced the Roman forces in 137
BC in a battle at the river
Douro (, , , ), which resulted in a great Roman victory, by virtue of which the Roman proconsul
Decimus Junius Brutus returned a hero, receiving the
agnomen Callaicus ('conqueror of the Callaicoi', a Callaecian tribe inhabiting the southernmost region of Callaecia by the mouth of the Douro), his campaign followed the Atlantic coast all the way to the river
Limia, but no further than the river
Miño. This campaign was largely a punitive one, in the context of the aftermath of the Lusitanian wars, as the capital of the Callaici (
Portus Cale) was only definitively occupied by
Marcus Perpena in 74 BC. Further incursions in southern Callaecia, included
Publius Licinius Crassus's campaign of 96–94 BC. The first incursion into
Northern Callaecia happened in 61 BC, during Julius Caesar's consulship, a largely naval-based campaign across the entire Northern Hispanic coastline, defeating the Callaeci a battle near
Brigantium. The final conquest of Callaecia happened during the
Cantabrian Wars, fought under the Emperor
Augustus from 26 to 19 BC. The resistance was appalling: collective suicide rather than surrender, mothers who killed their children before committing suicide, crucified prisoners of war who sang triumphant hymns, rebellions of captives who killed their guards and returned home from
Gaul. For Rome, Callaecia was a region formed exclusively by two —the and the —and was distinguished clearly from other zones like the Asturica, according to written sources: • Legatus iuridici to per ASTVRIAE ET CALLAECIAE. • Procurator ASTVRIAE ET CALLAECIAE. • Cohors ASTVRVM ET CALLAECORUM. •
Pliny: ASTVRIA ET CALLAECIA In the 3rd century AD,
Diocletian created an administrative division which included the of Callaecia, Asturica, and possibly Cluniense. This province took the name of Callaecia since it was the most populous and important zone within the province. In 409, as Roman control collapsed, the
Suebi conquests transformed Roman Callaecia (convents Lucense and Bracarense) into the
Kingdom of Galicia (the recorded by
Hydatius and
Gregory of Tours).
Roman governors •
Aconius Catullinus Philomatius, before 338
Later Gallaecia In later, post-Roman sources, the name
Callaecia evolves into
Gallaecia and
Gallicia. On the night of 31 December 406 AD, several
Germanic barbarian tribes, the
Vandals,
Alans, and
Suebi, swept over the Roman frontier on the Rhine. They advanced south, pillaging
Gaul, and crossed the Pyrenees. They set about dividing up the Roman provinces of
Carthaginiensis,
Tarraconensis, Gallaecia, and
Baetica. The Suebi took part of Gallaecia, where they later established a kingdom. After the Vandals and Alans left for North Africa, the Suebi took control of much of the Iberian Peninsula. However,
Visigothic campaigns took much of this territory back. The Visigoths emerged victorious in the wars that followed, and eventually annexed Gallaecia. After the Visigothic defeat and
the annexation of much of Hispania by the
Moors, a group of Visigothic states survived in the northern mountains, including Gallaecia. In
Beatus of Liébana (d. 798),
Gallaecia became used to refer to the Christian part of the
Iberian Peninsula, whereas
Hispania was used for the Muslim one. The emirs, preferring to focus on the task of consolidation of conquered territory, ultimately never expanded into these highly defended mountains, which the Romans before them also had taken generations to incorporate. In
Charlemagne's time, bishops of Gallaecia attended the Council of Frankfurt in 794. During his residence in
Aachen, he received embassies from
Alfonso II of Gallaecia, according to the Frankish chronicles.
Sancho III of Navarre in 1029 refers to
Bermudo III of León as . == See also ==