TU´RONES
TU´RONES,
TU´RONI, TURO´NII. Some of Caesar's troops wintered in the country of the Turones after the campaign of B.C. 57 (
B. G. 2.35). Turones are mentioned again (
B. G. 8.46), where we learn that they bordered on the Carnutes; and in another place (7.4) they are mentioned with the Pictones, Cadurci, Aulerci, and other states of Western Gallia. When Vercingetorix (B.C. 52) was rousing all Gallia against Caesar, he ordered the Turones to join him.
The contingent which they were called on to furnish against Caesar, during the siege of Alesia was 8000 men (7.75).
But the Turones never gave Caesar much trouble, though Lucan calls them “instabiles” (1.437), if the verse is genuine.
In Ptolemy (
2.8.14), the name is
Τουρογιεῖς, and the capital is Caesarodunum or
Tours on the
Loire. In the insurrection of Sacrovir in the time of Tiberius, the Turonii, as Tacitus calls them (
Ann. 3.41, 46), rose against the Romans, but they were soon put down. They are in the Lugdunensis of Ptolemy.
The chief part of the territory of the Turones was south of the
Loire, and their name is the origin of the provincial name
Touraine. Ukert (
Gallien, p. 329) mentions a silver coin of the Turoni. On one side there is a female head with the legend “Turonos,” and on the other “Cantorix” with the figure of a galloping horse
[
G.L]
