Aquitani


The Aquitanians were a people living in what is now southern Aquitaine and southwestern Midi-Pyrénées, France, called Gallia Aquitania by the Romans in the region between the Pyrenees, the Atlantic ocean, and the Garonne, present-day southwestern France. Classical authors such as Julius Caesar and Strabo clearly distinguish them from the other peoples of Gaul, and note their similarity to others in the Iberian Peninsula.
During the process of Romanization, they gradually adopted the Latin Language and Roman civilization. Their old language, the Aquitanian language, was a precursor of the Basque language and the substrate for the Gascon language spoken in Gascony.

History

At the time of the Roman conquest, Julius Caesar, who defeated them in his campaign in Gaul, describes them as making up a distinct part of Gaul:
Despite apparent cultural and linguistic connections to Iberia and to Iberians, the area of Aquitania, as a part of Gaul ended at the Pyrenees according to Caesar:

Relation to Basque people and language

The presence, on late Romano-Aquitanian funerary slabs, of what seem to be the names of deities or people similar to certain names in modern Basque have led many philologists and linguists to conclude that Aquitanian was closely related to an older form of Basque. Julius Caesar draws a clear line between the Aquitani, living in present-day south-western France and speaking Aquitanian, and their neighboring Celts living to the north. The fact that the region was known as Vasconia in the Early Middle Ages, a name that evolved into the better known form of Gascony, along with other toponymic evidence, seems to corroborate that assumption.

Tribes

Although the country where the original Aquitanians lived came to be named Novempopulania in the late years of the Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages, the number of tribes varied :

Aquitani tribes

In the southern slopes of western Pyrenees Mountains, not in Aquitania but in northern Hispania Tarraconensis: