The Albiones or Albioni were a Gallaecian people living the north coast of modern Spain in western Asturias and eastern Galicia mentioned by Pliny the Elder.[1] They are generally included in maps of Roman Spain.[2]
The name Albiones is also attested on the "stele of Nicer Clutosi" found near Vegadeo, which has the inscription:
- ☧ NICER CLUTOSI (filius) C(astello) CARIACA PRINCIPIS ALBIONUM AN(norum) LXXV HI(c) S(itus) EST, which can be translated as " Nicer, [son] of Clutoso from the house of Cariaca, prince of the Albions, [died aged] 75 years, lies here."[3]
This same area was settled by a group of Britons in the post-Roman period, from whom the region took the name Britonia or Bretoña, mentioned in ecclesiastical sources as Britonensis ecclesia ("British church") and an episcopal see called the sedes Britonarum - see the History of Galicia.
References
edit- ^ Pliny. "Natural History Book 4". University of Chicago. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
- ^ Tabula Imperii Romani K-29, Porto: Conimbriga, Bracara, Lucus, Asturica, (Madrid, 1991) 20-21; Richard J.A. Talbert (ed.), Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, map 24, E1.
- ^ L'Année épigraphique (1946), 121.