CAMUNNI: AN ALPINE POPULATION TO THE BORDERS OF ITALY

Abstract

In the 3th century BC the Roman armies began the subjugation of the Cisalpine Gaul on the Italian side of the Alps. In the middle of the 1st century BC Gaius Julius Caesar accomplished the conquest of Transalpine Gaul on the French side of the Alps, but was only during the Augustus principate that Romans gained the control of the Alpine valleys. Among the conquered populations there were the Camunni, the inhabitants of the Camonica Valley, a territory located in the north east of Lombardy, that bordering to the north with the Valtellina, to the east with Trentino, to the west with the Bergamo valleys and to the south with the Lake Iseo and the Brescia area. The aim of this article is to provide a profile of the Camunni population in the context of the Alpine Romanization process started by Augustus, through the examination of literary and epigraphic sources and the archaeological evidence of the area.