A Wisdom Archive on Turduli Veteres

The Lusitanians were primarily a single tribe that lived between the rivers Douro and Tagus. Later, the name Lusitania was adopted by ancient Calaicians or Gallaeci (tribes living in the north of Douro River) and other closely surrounding tribes, eventually spreading as a label to all the local people fighting the Roman rule - but also because they were all culturally and ethnically very similar. Most of these tribes w ...

Read more here: » Lusitanians: Encyclopedia II - Lusitanians - Tribes

Since 193 BCE, the Lusitanians had been fighting the Romans. In 150 BCE, they were defeated by Praetor Servius Galba: springing a clever trap, he killed 9,000 Lusitanians and later sold 20,000 more as slaves in Gaul (modern France). Three years later (147 BCE), Viriathus became the leader of the Lusitanians and severely damaged the Roman rule in Lusitania and beyond. In 139 BCE, he was betrayed and ...

Read more here: » Lusitanians: Encyclopedia II - Lusitanians - War with the Romans and eventual Romanisation

The Lusitanians worshipped various gods in a very chaotic polytheism, using animal sacrifice. They represented their gods and warriors in rudimentary sculpture. Endovelicus was the most important god: his cult eventually spread across the Iberian peninsula and beyond, to the rest of the Roman Empire and his cult maintained until the 5th century; he was the god of public health and safety. Goddess Ataegina was especially popular in the south, and she was the Goddess of rebirth (Spring), fertility, nature, and cure, during the Roman era was ve ...

Read more here: » Lusitanians: Encyclopedia II - Lusitanians - Religion

Portugal's name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale (Latin for Warm Port). Cale was the name of an early settlement located at the mouth of the Douro River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean in the north of what is now Portugal. Around 200 BCE, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War, and in the process conquered Cale and renamed it Portus Cale. During the Middle Ages, the region around Cale became known by the Visigoths as Portucale. Portucale evolved ...

Read more here: » History of Portugal: Encyclopedia II - History of Portugal - Portugal

Portugal has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, first by Neanderthals and then by homo sapiens. In the early first millennium BCE, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from central Europe and intermarried with the local Iberian people, forming the Celtiberian ethnic group, with many tribes, such as the Lusitanians, the Calaicians or Gallaeci and the Conii (amongst others less significant tribes such as the Bracari, Celtici, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Tur ...

Read more here: » History of Portugal: Encyclopedia II - History of Portugal - Early history

The Lusitanians are classified as, at least, having being influenced by Celtic culture. Theirs was a developed culture, although not as developed as the Romans and Greeks, but they became infamous to the Romans due to their surprising capacity in fighting them; it is by this Roman perspective that we know about this people. The Lusitanians used such weapons as the dagger, the iron-made javelin, and the brass spear. They greased their bodies, and used vapour baths before bathing more properly in cold water; and usually ate once a day. ...

Read more here: » Lusitanians: Encyclopedia II - Lusitanians - Culture

The Carnation Revolution of 1974, an effectively bloodless left-wing military coup, installed the Third Republic. Broad democratic reforms were implemented. In 1975, Portugal granted independence to its Overseas Provinces (Províncias Ultramarinas in Portuguese) in Africa (Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe). In that same year, Indonesia invaded and annexed the Portuguese province of Portuguese Timor (East Timor) in Asia before independence could be granted. The Asian depend ...

Read more here: » History of Portugal: Encyclopedia II - History of Portugal - The Third Republic

In 219 BCE, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Within 200 years, almost the entire peninsula was dominated, becoming part of the Roman Empire. The Carthaginians, Rome's adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies. In Portuguese territory, the conquest started from the south, where the Romans found friendly natives, the Conii. Within several decades, the Romans had conquered the entire territory. In 194 BCE, a rebellion began in the north. The Lusitanians and other native tribes, under the ...

Read more here: » History of Portugal: Encyclopedia II - History of Portugal - Roman Lusitania