Onobrisates

The Onobrisates were a people of Aquitania, known only from the list of Aquitanian peoples given by Pliny. Their location is uncertain. They have been placed by conjecture in the central Pyrenees, in the Nébouzan.

Name

The Onobrisates are named once, in Pliny's list of the peoples of Aquitania, between the Venami and the Belendi. They are otherwise unknown. On the strength of the name, Alfred Holder supposed a town *Onobrisa, an inference Paul-Marie Duval regarded as baseless.

Geography

In Pliny's list the Onobrisates stand between the Venami, taken to be the people of Béarn, and the Belendi, just before the chain of the Pyrenees. At this point Pliny seems to be moving eastward along the mountains, into higher country. Some scholars identified the Onobrisates with the Onesii and placed them near Luchon, an identification Duval judged arbitrary. He preferred that of Ferdinand Lot, who traced from the name the medieval Neurest in the Nébouzan and set their chief place at Cieutat-de-Neurest, midway between Tarbes and Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges.

References

  1. ↑ Bost 2009, p. 124.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Duval 1989, p. 725.
  3. ↑ Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:108.

Primary sources

  • Pliny (1938). Natural History. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Rackham, H. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674993648. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

Bibliography

  • Bost, Jean-Pierre (2009). L'Empire romain et les sociétés provinciales: recueil d'articles. Scripta Antiqua. Bordeaux: Ausonius. ISBN 978-2-35613-014-3.
  • Duval, Paul-Marie (1989) [1955]. "Les peuples de l'Aquitaine d'après la liste de Pline". Travaux sur la Gaule (1946–1986). Publications de l'École française de Rome. Vol. 116. Rome: École française de Rome. pp. 721–737. Originally published in Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes 29 (1955), pp. 214–227.