- Vindelicia
In the pre-Roman
geography of Europe , Vindelicia simply identifies the country inhabited by the Vindelici, a region bounded on the north by theDanube and (later) the Hadrian's Limes Germanicus, on the east by the Oenus (Inn), on the south byRaetia and on the west by the territory of theHelvetii . It thus corresponded to the northeast portion ofSwitzerland , the southeast of Baden, and the south ofWürttemberg andBavaria . Its chief town was refounded by the Romans asAugusta Vindelicorum ("Augusta of the Vindelici", orAugsburg ).The
material culture of its inhabitants the Vindelici wasLa Tène . Whether the Vindelici spoke a Celtic (Gaulish) or Germanic language, is not secure; a possible etymology of their name includes an element "vind-" cognate to Irish "find-" "white" (compare "Ginevra "). [Compare alsoVandals ,Venedes ,Vindonissa ,Veneti orWends .] Together with the neighboring tribes they were subjugated byTiberius in15 BC . The Augustan inscription of 12 BC mentions four tribes of the Vindelici among the defeated.Towards the end of the first century AD, this region of the Vindelici was included in the province of
Raetia .Horace alluded to them in his fourth book of "Odes" (iv.14), describing the eagle's first flight, a long metaphor that reveals itself at last as a compliment to Drusus::"videre Raeti bella sub Alpibus:"Drusum gerentem Vindelici" ["So the Vindelici young Drusus saw/ Leading war home to their own Rhaetian Alps" in Bulwer-Lytton's translation.]
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