Ambarri

Ambarri gold coin, 5th-1st century BCE.

A map of Gaul in the 1st century BC, showing the relative positions of the Celtic tribes.

The Ambarri were a Gallic people dwelling in the modern Ain department during the Iron Age and the Roman period.

Name

They are mentioned as Ambarri and Ambarros by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), and as Ambarros by Livy (late-1st c. BC),

The Gaulish ethnonym Ambarri could mean 'on both sides of the Saône river', stemming from the Gaulish suffix amb- ('around') attached to the pre-Celtic name of the Saône river, Arar. It has also been interpreted as a contraction of Ambi-barii ('the very-angry'), formed with the intensifying Gaulish suffix ambi- attached to bar(i)o- ('wrath, fury, passion'; cf. Welsh am-far 'mad rage', Old Irish barae 'fury, anger').

The cities of Ambérieu-en-Bugey, attested ca. 853 as Ambariacus (Ambayreu in 1240), Ambérieux-en-Dombes, attested in 501 as Ambariaco (Ambaireu in 1226), and Ambérieux, attested in 892 as Ambariacum, are named after the Gallic tribe. They originally derive from a form Ambarria attached to the suffix -acos.

Geography

The Ambarri occupied a tract in the valley of the Rhône, probably in the angle between the Saône and the Rhône; and their neighbors on the east were the Allobroges. They are mentioned by Livy (v. 34) with the Aedui among those Galli who were said to have crossed the Alps into Italy in the time of Tarquinius Priscus. They are not mentioned among the clientes of the Aedui. (B. G. vii. 75.)

History

According to the Roman historian Titus Livius, the Ambarri joined Bellovesus' legendary migrations ca. 600 BC towards Italy:

... but to Bellovesus the gods proposed a far pleasanter road, into Italy. Taking out with him the surplus population of his tribes, the Bituriges, Arverni, Senones, Haedui, Ambarri, Carnutes, and Aulerci, he marched with vast numbers of infantry and cavalry into the country of the Tricastini.

— Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri. 5:34:5. trans. B. O. Foster (Loeb, 1924).

Julius Caesar calls them close allies and kinsmen of the Aedui:

At the same time the [Aedui] Ambarri, close allies and kinsmen of the Aedui, informed Caesar that their lands had been laid waste, and that they could not easily safeguard their towns from the violence of the enemy.

— Livy, Commentarii de Bello Gallico. 1:11. trans. H. J. Edwards (Loeb, 1917).

They are also mentioned by Caesar along the Aedui and the Allobroges:

And even if he [Caesar] were willing to forget an old affront, could he banish the memory of recent outrages—their [the Helvetii] attempts to march by force against his will through the Province, their ill-treatment of the Aedui, the Ambarri, the Allobroges?

— Livy, Commentarii de Bello Gallico. 1:14. trans. H. J. Edwards (Loeb, 1917).

References

Bibliography

• Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.
• Falileyev, Alexander (2010). Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-names: A Celtic Companion to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. CMCS. ISBN 978-0955718236.
• Lambert, Pierre-Yves (1994). La langue gauloise: description linguistique, commentaire d'inscriptions choisies. Errance. ISBN 978-2-87772-089-2.
• Matasović, Ranko (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. Brill. ISBN 9789004173361.
• Nègre, Ernest (1990). Toponymie générale de la France. Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02883-7.