Ausuciates

The Ausuciates (Gaulish: *Ausuciatis) were a small Gallic tribe dwelling around present-day Ossuccio, on the western shore of Lake Como, during the Roman period.

Name

They are mentioned as Ausuciatium on an inscription dated to the early 1st millennium AD and found in Ossuccio (Ausucum).^[1][2]

The ethnonym Ausuciates may be derived from the Gaulish root aus(i)- ('ear'), and possibly translated as 'those having big ears'. It could be compared with the Old Irish óach ('with big ears'), from an earlier *ausākos.^[3][2] Alternatively, it may be derived from a hypothetical deity named *Ausucos ('The Golden One'), from the root *aus- ('gold'). The place-name Ausucum has been translated as the 'domain of *Ausucos'.^[4][5]

Geography

The Ausuciates dwelled on the western shore of Lake Como, around the settlement of Ausucum (modern Ossuccio). Their territory was located north of the Gallianates and Insubres, northeast of the Subinates, east of the Orobii, and south the Aneuniates.^[6]

References

1. CIL 5:5227.
2. Falileyev 2010, s.v. Ausuciates.
3. Delamarre 2003, p. 62.
4. Blažek 2017, p. 277.
5. Delamarre 2019, p. 100.
6. Talbert 2000, Map 19: Raetia, Map 39: Mediolanum.

Bibliography

• Blažek, Václav (2017). "Indo-European 'Gold' in Time and Space". Journal of Indo-European Studies. 45 (3/4): 267–311.
• Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.
• Delamarre, Xavier (2019). Dictionnaire des thèmes nominaux du gaulois. Ab-/Iχs(o)-. Vol. 1. Les Cents Chemins. ISBN 978-1-7980-5040-8.
• 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.
• Talbert, Richard J. A. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691031699.