The Lusitani are generally grouped among Iberians, although some scholars have classified them as Celtiberians, because they manifested cultural traits of both Iberians and Celts. Their unique language, referred to as Lusitanian, makes them the hardest of all the indigenous people of the Iberian Peninsula to classify. They lived in present-day central Portugal and western Spain between the Douro and Tagus Rivers.
The Greek geographer Strabo of the first centuries b. c.e. and C. E. described them as the most powerful of Iberian peoples. Hannibal of the Carthaginians used them as mercenaries in his invasion of Italy in the late third century B. C.E. They offered resistance to the Romans in the second and first centuries b. c.e., with organized revolts in 195-190 b. c.e.; in 154-150 B. C.E.; in 147-139 b. c.e. under Viriathus, in 80-73 B. C.E. under the Roman expatriate Quintus Sertorius. They were pacified by troops under Julius Caesar in 61 b. c.e. Lusitania, including much of present-day Portugal and the Spanish provinces of Salamanca and Caceres, later became a Roman province; all the people of the region were referred to as Lusitanians.
In addition to stone statues, depicting warthogs, pigs, bulls, and sheep, three inscriptions have been found on rocks in Lusitanian territory in a Latin alphabet reproducing an undeciphered language, apparently referring to animal sacrifice.
World History
