Kingdoms of the Ligures

Prior to domination by Rome, the Alpine region contained various populations which had a complex, obscure, and ethnically-multilayered history. Two major ethnic groups were recorded (aside from intrusions by the Etruscans and Veneti), these being the Euganei on the north Italian plain and the Alpine foothills, and the Raeti in the Trentino and Alto Adige valleys.

There were a great many more minor groups, all of which seem to have formed part of the initial phase of the Golasecca culture. Generally they belonged to one or the other of these though, or to the coastal Ligurians who had gradually penetrated the Alps from the south.

There were many groups which formed Europe's Ligurian people, with not even a confederation uniting them all. While potentially Ligurians themselves, the case for the Lepontii (or Leponzi) is highly unclear (see feature link for more on the Ligurians in general). They were located across part of the Italian province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (Piedmont), and the southern part of the canton of Ticino, including the southern slopes both of the Simplon and Gotthard passes.

They were neighboured to the north by the Uberi and Vennonetes tribes of the Raeti, to the east by the Camuni (more Raeti), to the south by the mighty Celtic Insubres, and to the west by the Salassi and the mysterious Acitavones.

The main Lepontii settlements were Oscela, today's Domodossola (literally the 'dome of Ossola', or possibly the Cathedral of Ossola), and Bilitio, today's Bellinzona, capital of Ticino. Territory would have included Locarno, a major town around Lake Maggiore which lies between the above settlements. According to Pliny they lived in the Central Alps, between the sources of the Rhone and Rhine.

The Italian version of the Swiss Historical Lexicon (SHL) is more specific in placing them in the Val d'Ossola, just north of Lago Maggiore, the upper part of the Canton of Valais, Val de Binn, which is known for its mineral resources. Along with this they are connected to the region known as Sopraceneri (Ticino), which includes Bellinzona. Locarno, and the town of Leventina. That latter name apparently derives from the tribe's own name.

Further domains included the Valle Mesolcina/Misoxtal, Canton Grisons, which stretches from the San Bernadino to the town of Grono which is not far from Bellinzona. The lexicon also states that this area was of strategic importance due to the number of alpine crossings which link the upper valleys of the Rhine and Rhone to the River Po.

According to the Italian section of the SHL, the Lepontii were quite a cultured people given the evidence from archaeological finds. They acted as trade intermediaries between the Etruscans and the Transalpine Celts and, from 200 BC onwards thanks to their immediate neighbours in the Po valley, were increasingly Romanised.

In fact they seem to have enjoyed a standard of living which was well in advance of any of the Alpine tribes. Archaeological finds reveal bronze pottery, amber, and coral, along with a remarkable economic and cultural development, acquired thanks to control of alpine passes and trade flows. Even the apparel of their women was above that of other tribes.

Part of the Golasecca culture of northern Italy and the southern Alps, neighbouring the Hallstatt to its north which perhaps provided them with their first dose of Celticisation, they are often grouped with the Raeti. Their location seems too far south of the Gotthard for that to be true though - at least, that was their location by the first century BC when Roman writers started recording the tribes in detail.

However, the Celtic advance into the Po Valley between about 600-400 BC forced the Raeti Tribes to relocate into the Alps (according to Pliny the Elder), so using the Gotthard as a Raeti demarcation line may not be valid until about the third century BC.

Opposed to this classification is the theory that they were Ligurians. The distribution of Ligurian tribes around the western Alps by the first century BC shows a kind of bubble of Celtic domination, with Ligurians to the south and west of it - and perhaps north too, if the Lepontii were indeed Ligurians.

Given that, it can be extrapolated (sadly without historical evidence) that Ligurians could have dominated the entire western Alps up the point at which the Celts broke through into the northern Italian plain. The Etruscans largely dominated the central plain itself, between coastal Ligurians and the Raeti of the northern plain.

After the Celtic breakthrough, Ligurians away from the Mediterranean coast were likely squeezed more tightly into the western Alps, or isolated there - where they received doses of Celtic influence to become Celto-Ligurians - and quite possibly into the northernmost part of the plain, while the Raeti were also being forced northwards into the Alpines proper.

Pliny labels the Lepontii as Celts of the Taurisci type, but this is likely because their language had already been Celticised by that stage. Whether Ligurians or Raeti to start with, or even a third group which may have been the driving force for the Golasecca culture, Lepontii ancestry is much more complicated than any simple categorisation.

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