The Lacetani were an ancient Iberian (pre-Roman) people of the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania). They are believed to have spoken an Iberian language. There remains some doubt whether their naming is not a corruption of either Laeetani or Iacetani, the names of two neighboring peoples.[1] [2] Ptolemy located the towns of Aeso/Isona (Guissona) and Setelsis/Selensis (Solsona) among those in a territory, of the Lacetani or the Iacetani.[3] Pliny the elder listed the people as a tributary of Rome in his geographical description of Hispania Citerior.[4] Livy described the location as a district at the foot of the Pyrenees, and north of the river Ebro.[5]
The name is mentioned by some Roman period writers. Surviving mentions in Livy begin the context of the early stages of the Second Punic War, first with the Carthaginian occupation of Lacetania.[6] Secondly, a battle is described and placed shortly after Scipio Calvus's arrival in Hispania in 215 BCE; it tells that Roman forces defeated a Lacetani rescue force, on its way to a besieged Ausetanian city, after Hasdrubal the Carthaginian instigated the Ilergetes to into rebellion and these two peoples had joined.[7] In the time of Scipio Africanus's commandment in Iberia, the Lacetani are said to have taken part in the rebellion under Indibilis and Mandonius, whom on this point the text presents as Lacetani rather than Ilergetes.[8] Finally Livy writes of their part in the Iberian revolt of 197-195 BCE, and an attack that Cato the elder led on their city with Suessetani auxiliaries on his side. Incidentally, they are described: "The Lacetani, a remote and forest-dwelling race, were kept under arms, partly by their native savageness, partly by their consciousness of having pillaged the allies in sudden raids while the consul and the army were engaged in the campaign in Turdetania."[9] According to Plutarch, the city harbored Roman deserters, who were sentenced to death after the victory (in marked difference from Scipio Africanus's approach), and the battle contributed to the quarrel between the two Romans.[10]
Sallust's Histories has Lacetania as a territory that Pompey claimed to have recovered from Sertorius in 76 BCE.[11] Cassius Dio adds that when Sextus Pompey fled from Hispania Baetica, after the Battle of Munda in Caesar's Civil War, he was able to hide in Lacetania as the people there remembered his father Pompey favorably.
Pliny noted it is a region of abundant vines, that allow the production of second-rate wine.[12] Martial in his epigrams also recalled Laletanian or Lacetanian[13] as a kind of cheap wine.[14]
Emil Hübner sought to identify the Lacetani with the Iacetni in most of these references, where the geographic context or progression of the text allows to link it to the mountainous region north of Caesaraugusta. He excepted Livy 21.60-61, as it shows a coastal context that better fit the Laeetani, and was not decided if Laletania (and its wine) should be treated as a separate coastal group or a variation of Laeetani. He noted Theodor Mommsen's view, that the alteration of intial L and I can reflect an in-betwwen Spanish ll sound.[2]
. Drakenborch . Arnold . T. Livii Patavini Historiarum ab urbe condita libri, qui supersunt, omnes, cum notis... . 1740 . 3 . Arnold Drakenborch . 395. la. Hübner 1866 proposed Iacetaniam instead. Compare the relevant folios of three manuscripts: M; N; C.