Aeduan Cavalry
Heavy Cavalry(0.6.7)Side / Back
Short description
Heavy Celtic influence has created this formidable missile cavalry unit.
Description
The Veneti, whose name means 'noble' or 'shining', can be traced back to legendary and mythological beginnings. The Greeks claim that they originated in Asia Minor and that after the Trojan War, Antenor, a counsellor of King Priam, led them to present day Patavium. Their legends accounted for the presence and cult of Diomedes, who became a well-known Adriatic hero and was identified as the founder of Adria. The reputation of the Veneti as horse breeders coincides with the sacrifices of white horses at the mouth of the Timavo River in Diomedes' honour. A stele from Padua (Verona, Museo Lapidario Maffeiano inv. 28741) depicts a two-horse chariot driven by a man who holds the title of Ekupetaris, possibly corresponding to the Greek Hipparchos. This shows that cavalry was as important in Venetic society as in that of its Celtic neighbours to the West. In their territory was also found a helmet, dated to 100 BC, which bears a Germanic name in Venetic letters (Harl 2011, pp. 122-123). The finding suggests that the Veneti might have hired some either of the passing or later the defeated Cimbri and Teutones as mercenaries and that they should be seen as a complex military power.
They also had historical links to the Histri, Carni and other Alpine tribes as well relationships with the Golasecca, Villanovan and Etruscan cultures. They managed to co-exist peacefully with these neighbours due to their navigational abilities and became an important player on the amber trade route.
During the 3rd century B.C., the Veneti, together with the Cenomani Celts on their western border, sided with the Romans as Rome expanded and struggled against the Insubri and Boii Celts (Polyb. II, 23, 2). During the Second Punic War (218 - 202 B.C.), the Veneti sent a contingent of soldiers to fight alongside the Romans against the invading Carthaginians and were among those slaughtered at the Battle of Cannae (216 B.C.).
In 181 B.C., a Roman triumvirate of Publius Scipio Nasica, Caius Flaminius, and Lucius Manlius Acidinus led three thousand families, mainly from Samnium but supplemented by native Veneti, to found a Latin colony at Aquileia as a base to protect the territory of the Veneti from incursions of the hostile Carni and Istri.
After the 91 B.C. Italic rebellion, the cities of the Veneti, together with the rest of Transpadania, were granted partial rights of Roman citizenship according to the Lex Pompeia Transpadanis. Later in 49 B.C., by the Lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina, Rome granted full Roman citizenship to the Veneti. Such citizens would have benefitted from the Via Claudia completed in 46 B.C. and connecting Altinum to Tarvisium to Feltria to Tridentum (modern Trento).
After the Battle of Philippi (42 B.C.), which ended the Roman Civil Wars for a while, the lands of the Veneti, together with the rest of Cisalpine Gaul, ceased to be a province and the territory of the Veneti, which included modern Friuli, became region X (Venetia et Istria) of a new entity named Italia (Italy), with Aquileia becoming the capital. Meanwhile, under the Pax Romana, Patavium (modern Padua) became one of the most important cities of northern Italy, and last but not least the home of Rome's most patriotic historian, Livy. By the end of the first century A.D., Latin had finally displaced the Venetic language.