The Bodiocasses or Baiocasses were an ancient Gallic tribe of the Roman period. They were a tribal division of the civitas of the Lexovii, in the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis.
Name
editAttestations
editThey are mentioned as Bodiocasses by Pliny (1st c. AD),[1] as Baiocassi by Ausonius (4th c. AD),[2] and as Baiocas in the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD).[3][4]
In Pliny's Natural History, various manuscripts refer to this tribe as the Vadiocasses, Bodiocasses, or Bodicasses, likely due to a copyist’s mistake.[5]
The Vadicassii (Οὐαδικάσσιοι) cited by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD are probably a separate tribe, since he places them near the Meldi (Meaux), in the direction of Belgica.[5]
Etymology
editThe Gaulish ethnonym Bodiocasses derives from the Proto-Celtic stem *bodyo- ('yellow, blond'; cf. Old Irish buide 'yellow').[6][7] The meaning of the second element -casses, attested in other Gaulish ethnonyms such as Durocasses, Sucasses, Tricasses, Veliocasses or Viducasses, has been debated. It has traditionally been interpreted as '(curly) hair, hairstyle' (cf. Old Irish chass 'curl'), perhaps referring to a particular warrior coiffure. On this reading Rudolf Thurneysen compared the name with Old Irish buide-chass ('blond curls') and translated Bodiocasses as 'those who have blond curls/braids'.[8]
Other scholars have instead connected the element with metalworking. Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel interprets the -casses ethnonyms as helmet-names, glossing Bodiocasses as 'those with the shiny (i.e. bronze) helmets' and treating such names as evidence that the metalworking era had begun.[9][10] Mélanie Mairecolas and Jean-Marie Pailler, who link cass- to 'tin' rather than to 'hair' (cf. Gaulish Cassi-dannos, 'magistrate in charge of bronze coins', Britt. Cassivellaunus, 'Chief-of-Tin'; also Greek κασσίτερος 'tin'), propose instead 'those with the bright, tawny-gleaming metal (tin or bronze)' or, less probably, 'those made bright by the metal'.[11]
The city of Bayeux, attested ca. 400 AD as civitas Baiocassium ('civitas of the Baiocasses'; Baiocas in 400–410, Baieus in 1155), and the region of Bessin, attested in 840 AD as pagus Baiocassinus ('pagus of the Baiocasses'; Beissin in 1050–66), all stem from the Gallic tribe.[12]
Geography
editHistory
editJulius Caesar does not mention the tribe in his commentaries on the Gallic Wars (58–50 BCE), but they are later mentioned by Ausonius (4th c. AD) and in the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD).[4] They are probably the same people Pliny calls Bodiocasses.[6]
The Baiocasses minted base gold, silver and billon (base silver) coins in the denomination of one stater and in the case of gold coins sometimes quarter staters. Most of the coins show a Celtic-style male head with elaborated hair on the obverse, and on the reverse a horse with a chariot rider above or behind, and below usually either a lyre or small boar. A number of these are in existence.[13][unreliable source?]
The 4th-century Bordelaise poet Ausonius teases a friend as a Baiocassis who claimed to be of druidic heritage and descended from priests of Belenus.[14]
References
edit- ↑ Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:107.
- ↑ Ausonius. Professores, 11, 4:7.
- ↑ Notitia Dignitatum, oc. 42, 34.
- 1 2 Falileyev 2010, s.v. Bodiocasses.
- 1 2 Popineau, Jean-Marc (2020). "Les Sulbanectes, une approche archéogéographique (Vᵉ s. avant notre ère - Ier s. après)". Compte-rendus et Mémoires de la Société d'Histoire et d'Archéologie de Senlis 2016-2017. pp. 11–41.
- 1 2 3 Delamarre 2003, p. 63.
- ↑ Matasović 2009, p. 70.
- ↑ Delamarre 2003, pp. 109–110: "H. Birkhan parvient cependant à la conclusion raisonnable que -casses et cassi- sont deux mots différents, que -casses signifie probablement 'au cheveux bouclés / crépus' ("mit wirrem Kraushaar") et s'explique par la coiffure spéciale des Celtes au combat (une forme celto-germanique *kazdh- permettrait d'unifier le celtique -cass- et les mots v.norr. haddr 'longs cheveux de femme', ags. heord 'chevelure' < *kazdh-to-/ti-)."
- ↑ de Bernardo Stempel 2008, p. 108.
- ↑ de Bernardo Stempel 2015, p. 85.
- ↑ Mairecolas & Pailler 2010, § 29.
- ↑ Nègre 1990, pp. 152, 424.
- ↑ BAIOCASSES - BAIOCASSES - (Région de BAYEUX) - (Ier siècle avant J.-C.) - Statère d'argent fourré - c. 60-50 AC. - VSO 15.
- ↑ Ausonius, Commemoratio professorum Burdigalensium 4.7; Altay Coşkun with Jürgen Zeidler, "'Cover Names' and Nomenclature in Late Roman Gaul: The Evidence of the Bordelaise Poet Ausonius" (2003), pp. 6–7.
Bibliography
edit- de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (2008). "Linguistically Celtic Ethnonyms: Towards a Classification". In García Alonso, Juan Luis (ed.). Celtic and Other Languages in Ancient Europe. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 101–118.
- de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (2015). "Zu den keltisch benannten Stämmen im Umfeld des oberen Donauraums". In Lohner-Urban, Ute; Scherrer, Peter (eds.). Der obere Donauraum 50 v. bis 50 n. Chr. Frank & Timme. ISBN 978-3-7329-0143-2.
- Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.
- Falileyev, Alexander (2010). Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-names: A Celtic Companion to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. CMCS. ISBN 978-0955718236.
- Mairecolas, Mélanie; Pailler, Jean-Marie (2010). "Sur les « voies de l'étain » dans l'ancien Occident. Quelques jalons". Pallas. 82: 139–167. doi:10.4000/pallas.12254.
- Matasović, Ranko (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. Brill. ISBN 9789004173361.
- Nègre, Ernest (1990). Toponymie générale de la France. Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02883-7.