Lesson plan
Ligures
Italy before the Roman conquest. The Ligures occupied the north-western corner (green). The Ligures or Ligurians ( , singular Ligus or Ligur; ) were an ancient people of the north-western Mediterranean, centred on north-western Italy and extending along the neighbouring coast of south-eastern Gaul. Their name was among the oldest mentioned by ancient writers, being attested from the archaic Greek geographers down to the Roman conquest. In a narrow sense, the name belonged to a population of north-western Italy, where a distinctive material culture is recognisable from the Bronze Age. The chief markers of Ligurian identity here were an indigenous cremation rite and distinctively non-Celtic onomastics. Another ancient tradition, going back to the 6th century BC, applied the name Ligyes to a much broader and largely unknown area inhabited by 'barbarians' in the far west. The earliest Greek geographers placed them at the edge of the known world, in a semi-mythical setting similar to that of the Ethiopians and Scythians. Such descriptions covered a shifting, ill-defined area and their ethnic value is much debated by modern scholars, since several of the peoples they reckoned Ligurian, especially in southern Gaul, bore unmistakably Celtic names.…
Article summary
Italy before the Roman conquest. The Ligures occupied the north-western corner (green). The Ligures or Ligurians ( , singular Ligus or Ligur; ) were an ancient people of the north-western Mediterranean, centred on north-western Italy and extending along the neighbouring coast of south-eastern Gaul. Their name was among the oldest mentioned by ancient writers, being attested from the archaic Greek geographers down to the Roman conquest. In a narrow sense, the name belonged to a population of north-western Italy, where a distinctive material culture is recognisable from the Bronze Age. The chief markers of Ligurian identity here were an indigenous cremation rite and distinctively non-Celtic onomastics. Another ancient tradition, going back to the 6th century BC, applied the name Ligyes to a much broader and largely unknown area inhabited by 'barbarians' in the far west. The earliest Greek geographers placed them at the edge of the known world, in a semi-mythical setting similar to that of the Ethiopians and Scythians. Such descriptions covered a shifting, ill-defined area and their ethnic value is much debated by modern scholars, since several of the peoples they reckoned Ligurian, especially in southern Gaul, bore unmistakably Celtic names.…
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.