ILVATES
Eth.
ILVATES a Ligurian tribe, whose name is found only in Livy.
He mentions them first as taking up arms in B.C. 200, in concert with the Gaulish tribes of the Insubres and Cenomani, to destroy the Roman colonies of Placentia and Cremona. They are again noticed three years later as being still in arms, after the submission of their Transpadane allies; but in the course of that year's campaign (B.C. 197) they were reduced by the consul Q. Minucius, and their name does not again appear in history. (
Liv. 30.10,
31.29,
30.) From the circumstances here related, it is clear that they dwelt on the N. slopes of the Apennines, towards the plains of the Padus, and apparently not very far from Clastidium (
Casteggio); but we cannot determine with certainty either the position or extent of their territory. Their name, like those of most of the Ligurian tribes mentioned by Livy, had disappeared in the Augustan age, and is not found in any of the geographers. [
LIGURIA] Walekenaer, however, supposes the ELEATES over whom the consul M. Fulvius Nobilior celebrated a triumph in B.C. 159 (Fast. Capit. ap. Gruter, p. 297), and who are in all probability the same people with the Veleiates of Pliny [
VELEIA], to be identical also with the Ilvates of Livy; but this cannot be assumed without further proof. (Walckenaer,
Géogr. des Gaules, vol. i. p. 154.)
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E.H.B]
