The Turdetani were an ancient group of people who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before the Romans arrived. They lived in the valley of the Guadalquivir River, which they called Kertis and Rérkēs (Ῥέρκης). The Romans later named the river Baetis. This area became the Roman Province of Hispania Baetica, which is now part of southern Spain. Strabo, a writer from ancient times, believed the Turdetani were the people who followed the Tartessos culture and spoke a language similar to the Tartessian language.

History

The Turdetani often interacted with their Greek and Carthaginian neighbors. Herodotus wrote that they lived under a king named Arganthonios, who allowed Phocaean colonists to settle in their region during the fifth century BC. The Turdetani are believed to have had a written legal system and used Iberian soldiers in their wars against Rome. Strabo noted that the Turdetani were the most advanced people in Iberia, with a culture that closely resembled Greco-Roman traditions. After the Second Punic War ended, the Turdetani rebelled against their Roman governor in 197 BC. In 195 BC, Cato the Elder became consul and was given control of all of Hispania. Cato first ended the rebellion in the northeast, then marched south to suppress the Turdetani uprising, whom he described as "the least warlike of all the Hispanic tribes." By 194 BC, Cato returned to Rome, leaving two praetors to manage the two provinces.

In the comedy The Captives by Plautus, a mention of the Turdetani in Act i, Scene ii humorously suggests that their region in Hispania Baetica was well-known for supplying thrushes and other small birds to Roman households. The word "Turdus" refers to the thrush genus.