Marici (tribe)

The Marici were a Celto-Ligurian tribe dwelling around present-day Pavia (Lombardy) during the Iron Age.

Name

The ethnic name Marici can be translated as 'the big ones', from the Celtic stem maro- ('tall'). According to Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, such linguistically Celtic tribal names suggest that a Celto-Ligurian dialect played an important role among the languages spoken in ancient Ligury.^[1]

Geography

The Marici lived around the modern town of Pavia. Their territory was located south of the Laevi, west of the Ladatini, north of the Anamares.^[2]

History

In the Third Book of his Natural History, Pliny the Elder identifies them as the co-founders, along with the Laevi, of Ticinum, the modern Pavia.^[3]

References

1. de Bernardo Stempel 2006, p. 46.
2. Talbert 2000, Map 39: Mediolanum.
3. The text, in Philemon Holland’s 1601 English translation, is available online at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny3.html

Bibliography

• de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (2006). "From Ligury to Spain: Unaccented *yo > (y)e in Narbonensic votives ('gaulish' DEKANTEM), Hispanic coins ('iberian' -(sk)en) and some theonyms". Palaeohispanica. 6: 45–58. ISSN 1578-5386.
• Talbert, Richard J. A. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691031699.