Apuani

The Apuan (Latin Apuani ) was an important ancient tribe of the Ligurians in present-day northwestern Italy. After the presentation of the Roman historian Livy, they seem to have been the most easterly resident Ligurian tribe. They settled in the area around Pontremoli in the upper valley of the Macra (now Magra ), the border river between Liguria and Etruria.

For the first time the Apuan were 187 BC mentioned, as they by the consul Gaius Flaminius, who had topped the Apennines, were defeated and forced into submission. Thus, the consul wanted to prevent their constant incursions into the territories of Bononia and Pisae. The latter city was used by the Romans since the beginning of the 2nd century BC as a base for operations against the Ligurians. 186 BC lured the Apuan the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus in remote and narrow wooded gorges, then attacked him and beat him. The Romans lost the battle in 4000 soldiers and three standards. The location of this fiasco was called since then Marcius Saltus.

The Roman defeat was avenged in the next year, after several successive campaigns attacked the consuls of 181 BC, Publius Cornelius and Marcus Cethegus Baebius Tamphilus who had aligned in their Consulate nothing against the Apuan and this until next year 180 BC BC had been able to defeat, now relocating to the center, all the people according to Samnium. This included 40,000 members of the tribe, including women and children. In Samnium they received residences in uninhabited plains, called the Ager Taura sine (named after the early submerged Samnite city Taurasia ), assigned to Beneventum in the area. In the same year 180 BC Quintus Fulvius Flaccus Suffektkonsul the transplanted after the example of his predecessor in office 7000 still remaining in their home Apuan to their already resettled compatriots after Samnium. After the consuls, who had made ​​the main part of that transfer their homes, the Apuan Ligures have since been referred to as Baebiani and Ligures Corneliani. Under this name they encounter still under the reign of Emperor Trajan as a distinct population of Samnium. Those Apuan that had been left in their homeland, made ​​155 BC a rebellion, which the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus reflected and so the there colony founded Luna rescued.

Still bear the mountains around Carrara, the Apuan Alps, the name of this ancient people.