The Lepontii (also Leponti or Lepontini) were an ancient Celtic or celticized people or tribe settled during the Iron Age occupying portions of Rhaetia, in the central and western Alps, between modern Switzerland and north-western Italy during the late Bronze Age/Iron Age.
According to ancient authors, their territory extended northward to the sources of the Rhône and the Rhine, and southward to the areas where the Alpine valleys open toward the Po Valley, thus including the Canton of Ticino, western Lombardy, and the Ossola Valley. Their existence is attested from the 1st millennium BC.
The main settlement of the Lepontii was called Oscela, which the Romans later renamed Oscela Lepontiorum; today the town of Domodossola, in Italy. Another important centre or town was Bilitio, the present-day Bellinzona, in Switzerland. Their territory included the southern slopes of the St. Gotthard Pass and Simplon Pass, corresponding roughly to present-day Ossola, Italy; and Ticino, Switzerland.
Recent archeological excavations and their association with the Golasecca culture (9thâÂÂ7th centuries BC) and Canegrate culture (13th century BC) point to a Celtic affiliation. From the analysis of their language and the place names of the old Lepontic areas, it was hypothesized that these people represent a layer similar to that Celtic but previous to the Gallic penetration in the Po valley. The suggestion has been made that the Lepontii may have been celticized Ligurians.
A map of Rhaetia shows the location of the Lepontic territory, in the south-western corner of Rhaetia. The area to the south, including what was to become the Insubrian capital Mediolanum (modern Milan), was Etruscan around 600âÂÂ500 BCE, when the Lepontii began writing tombstone inscriptions in their alphabet, one of several Etruscan-derived alphabets in the Rhaetian territory.
Their name derives from the Latin Lepontii and appears in Ancient Greek as LÃÂpontië (ÃÂ÷ÃÂÃÂýÃÂùÿù).
In the writings of ancient authors, descriptions of the origins of the Lepontii mix legends and contradictory accounts. According to Pliny the Elder, the Lepontii were companions of Hercules who, while crossing the Alps, lost the use of their legs and were therefore abandoned. According to Polybius and Cato the Elder, their origin was Ligurian, while Strabo (c. 58 BCâÂÂAD 25) considered them similar to the Camunni and therefore one of the communities into which the Rhaetians were divided.
Modern historians tend to give greater credit to Polybius and Cato, while also noting significant Celtic infiltration that modified the Ligurian substratum.
The Lepontii were part of the context of the Golasecca culture (between the 9th and 7th centuries BC), itself derived from the Canegrate culture (13th century BC). From the analysis of their language and the ancient toponymy of the Lepontian areas, it has been hypothesised that this people represented a layer related to the Celtic world but predating the Gallic penetration into the Po Valley.
Important indications about the history of the Lepontii come from the discoveries in the Ornavasso necropolis. Agricultural tools and the richness of the grave goods (including silver and bronze vessels) found in the tombs of the earliest phase of the San Bernardo necropolis testify to a population mainly devoted to agriculture and pastoralism but also enjoying a notable degree of prosperity. These artefacts date to the period between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, when Roman power had not yet conquered the Cisalpine populations, although good relations were necessary for access to the Alpine passes. It has been hypothesised that they may have charged tolls for passage through the valley, and it is not excluded that they also carried out raids into more southern territories.
The exact date of their subjugation to Rome is unknown, but it probably occurred between the conquest of the Salassi (24 BC) and that of the Valtellina (15 BC). The Lepontii are mentioned in the Tropaeum Alpium erected between 7 and 6 BC.
The name of the Lepontii is recorded in the Tropaeum Alpium, a Roman monument erected in 7âÂÂ6 BC to celebrate the submission of the Alpine peoples and located near the French town of La Turbie:
Numerous inscriptions have been discovered in a language known as Lepontic (sometimes referred to less correctly as Lepontic following the English term), dating to the 7th century BC. The Lepontic language was classified by Michel Lejeune as a Continental Celtic language, and this classification still enjoys the widest acceptance among scholars. A minority of linguists instead follow the more recent classification proposed by Joseph Eska, according to which Lepontic would represent an early form of Gaulish.