SEGUSIA´NI
Eth.
SEGUSIA´NI (
Σεγοσιανοί or
Σεγουσιανοί), a Gallic people. When Caesar (B.C. 58) was leading against the Helvetii the troops which he had raised in North Italy, he crossed the Alps and reached the territory of the Allobroges. From the territory of the Allobroges he crossed the Rhone into the country of the Segusiani: “Hi sunt extra Provinciam trans Rhodanum primi.” (
B. G. 1.10.)
He therefore places them in the angle between the
Rhone and the
Saône, for he was following the Helvetii, who had not yet crossed the
Saône. In another place (7.64) he speaks of the Aedui and Segusiani as bordering on the Provincia, and the Segusiani were dependents of the Aedui (7.75). Strabo (
iv. p.186) places the Segusiani between the Rhodanus and the Dubis (
Doubs), on which D'Anville remarks that he ought to have placed them between the Rhone and the
Loire. But part of the Segusiani at least were west of the Rhone in Caesar's time, as he plainly tells us, and therefore some of them were between the Rhone and the
Doubs, though this is a very inaccurate way of fixing their position, for the
Doubs ran through the territory of the Sequani. Lugdunum was in the country of the Segusiani. [
LUGDUNUM] Pliny gives to the Segusiani the name of Liberi (4.18).
In Cicero's oration
Pro P. Quintio (100.25), a Gallic people named Sebaguinos, Sebaginnos, with several other variations, is mentioned.
The reading “Sebusianos” is a correction of Lambinus. Baiter (Orelli's Cicero, 2nd ed.) has written “Segusiavos” in this passage of Cicero on his own authority; but there is no name Segusiavi in Gallia.
It is probable that the true reading is “Segusianos.” Ptolemy (
2.8.14) names Rodumna (
Roanne) and Forum Segusianorum as the towns of the Segusiani, which shows that the Segusiani in his time extended to the
Loire [
RODUMNA]; and the greater part of their territory was probably west of the
Rhone and
Saône. Mionnet, quoted by Ukert (
Gallien, p. 320), has a medal which he supposes to belong to the Segusiani.
[
G.L]
