PETROCO´RII
Eth.
PETROCO´RII (Eth.
Πετροκόριοι,
Ptol. 2.7.12), a Gallic people, whom Ptolemy places in Aquitania.
He names the chief city Vesunna, which is
Perigord. Caesar mentions them (7.75) as sending a contingent of 5000 men to aid in raising the siege of Alesia; this is all that he says about them.
The passage in Pliny (
4.19. s. 33) in which he describes the position of the Petrocorii is doubtful: “Cadurci, Nitiobriges (a correction, see NITIOBRIGES), Tarneque amne discreti a Tolosanis Petrocorii.” This passage makes the Tarnis (
Tarn) the boundary between the territory of Tolosa (
Toulouse) and the Petrocorii, which is not true, for the Cadurci were between the Petrocorii and the territory of
Toulouse. Scaliger proposed to write the passage thus: “Cadurci, Nitiobriges, Tarne amni discreti a Tolosanis; Petrocorii.” But this is not true, for the Nitiobriges did not extend to the
Tarn. Strabo (iv. pp. 190,191) mentions the Petrocorii among the people between the
Garonne and the
Loire, and as near the Nitiobriges, Cadurci, Lemovices, and Arverni.
He says that there are iron mines in the country. The Petrocorii occupied the diocese of
Perigueux and
Sarlat (D'Anville). Besides Vesunna their territory contained Corterate, Trajectus, Diolindum, and some other small places.
[
G.L]
