The Aquitani were a group of people who lived in an area located between the Pyrenees Mountains, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Garonne River in what is now southwestern France during the 1st century BC. The Romans called this area Gallia Aquitania. Famous writers like Julius Caesar and Strabo clearly described the Aquitani as different from other groups in Gaul and noted that they were similar to people living in the Iberian Peninsula.

The language spoken by the Aquitani, called the Aquitanian language, was an early form of the Basque language and helped shape the Gascon language, which is a Romance language spoken in Gascony. From the 1st century to the 13th century, the Aquitani slowly stopped using their own language and began speaking Gascon while living under the Roman Empire, the Duchy of Gascony, and the Duchy of Aquitaine.

History

At the time of the Roman conquest, Julius Caesar, who defeated them during his campaign in Gaul, described them as forming a separate region of Gaul:

All Gaul is divided into three parts. The Belgae live in one part, the Aquitani in another, and the third is inhabited by people who call themselves Celts but are known as Gauls in Latin. These groups differ from one another in language, traditions, and laws. The Garonne River separates the Gauls from the Aquitani.

Although the Aquitani showed some cultural and language similarities to the Vascones, Caesar stated that the region of Aquitania stretched only as far as the Pyrenees:

Aquitania extends from the Garonne River to the Pyrenean Mountains and to the part of the ocean near Hispania. It is located between where the sun sets and where the North Star is visible.

Relation to Basque people and language

Late Romano-Aquitanian funerary slabs and altars show names that look like those of gods or people from modern Basque. This has made many experts believe that Aquitanian was closely connected to an older version of Basque. Julius Caesar clearly separated the Aquitani, who lived in what is now southwestern France and spoke Aquitanian, from the Celts who lived nearby to the north. The region being called Vasconia during the Early Middle Ages, which later became Gascony, along with other place name evidence, supports this idea.

Tribes

The area once home to the Aquitani was later called Novempopulania, meaning "province of the nine peoples," during the late Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages (up to the 6th century). However, this name does not show the many different groups that lived there before. Ancient writings suggest there were far more than nine tribes. Strabo, a writer from ancient times, listed about twenty groups in his book Geography. Lists from Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy, along with other details from Julius Caesar’s writings, help identify over thirty different tribes. By comparing these sources and using evidence from ancient inscriptions, modern scholars believe there were about thirty-two or thirty-three tribes in pre-Roman Aquitania.

In the southern slopes of the western Pyrenees Mountains, not in Aquitania but in northern Hispania Tarraconensis: