La migración de los célticos y túrdulos de la Beturia hacia el noroeste de Hispania

Abstract

The present work departs from a text of Strabo in which the author affirms that the celtic peoples of Gallaecia came from the banks of the river Guadiana, from where they moved together with the turdulians. We formulate the hypothesis that this migration took place in the context of the Lusitanian wars, concretely during the Fabius Maximus Seruilianus proconsulship (141 B.C.). This theory is based on Strabo’s information; on the political and military context in that period in the area of Beturia, where the most destructive military campaigns by the Roman armies were taking place; on the fact that many populated places in Beturia were abandoned in this time and, finally, for changes in the population of diverse areas of the Hispanic northwest in the middle of the second century B.C. In this context, the migration of the celts and turdulians acquires more coherence as beginning of the legend of the river Limia as “Oblivion river”, for it influenced Junius Brutus’s troops during 137 B.C., when they carried out the expedition up to the river Mino.