Cocosates

Aquitani peoples on both sides of the Pyrenees. source ↗

The Cocosates or Cocosates Sexsignani were an Aquitanian people of the Landes, in the Marensin near the Atlantic coast.¹ They are named by Caesar among the peoples who submitted to Publius Crassus in 56 BC, and by Pliny as the Cocosates Sexsignani.²³

Name

Caesar names the people Cocosates in his account of the Aquitanian campaign of 56 BC.⁴⁵ Pliny lists them among the peoples of Aquitania as the Cocosates Sexsignani, with the variants Cocosetes and Cosates.⁶⁷

The name is obscure. Alexander Falileyev allows that it may be Celtic, from a stem coc(c)o- ('scarlet red') attached to the suffix -ates ('belonging to').⁵ Red is a colour commonly used in personal names (Cocus, Cocca, Cocidius, etc.) and associated with warfare.⁸

The epithet Sexsignani means 'of the six standards', from Latin sex signa, similar with the epithet Quattuorsignani borne by the neighbouring Tarbelli. Jean-Pierre Bost reads it as designating the six smaller communities that were attached to the Cocosates under Augustus.⁹

Geography

The Cocosates held the Marensin, the coastal part of the Landes between the Atlantic and the small valley of the Geloux, which divided them from the Tarusates.¹⁰ A run of place-names formed on their name, from Seignosse in the Maremne to Coos in the Brassenx, marks out the area, with a wide empty tract between them and the Boiates to the north.¹⁰

Their chief town was known as Coequosa.⁷ It appears as a road station on the Antonine Itinerary, laying near Castets, and survives in the modern place-name Coucouse.¹¹

History

In 56 BC the legate Publius Crassus subdued Aquitania for Caesar. The Cocosates were among the peoples who then sent hostages.⁴² Paul-Marie Duval holds them to be clients of the Tarbelli of Dax.¹² Under Augustus they were drawn into the civitas of the Aquenses.¹³

References

Bost 2009, p. 28.
Duval 1989, p. 733.
Bost 2009, p. 44.
Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 3:27:1.
Falileyev 2010, s.v. Cocosates (Sexsignani).
Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:108.
Duval 1989, p. 725.
Delamarre 2003, pp. 120–121.
Bost 2001, p. 30.
Bost 2009, p. 14.
Bost 2009, pp. 14, 34.
Duval 1989, p. 732.
Bost 2009, p. 34.

Primary sources

Caesar (1917). The Gallic War. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Edwards, H. J. Harvard University Press.
Pliny (1938). Natural History. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Rackham, H. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674993648. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

Bibliography

Bost, Jean-Pierre (2001). "Dax et les Tarbelles". L'Adour maritime de Dax à Bayonne. Publications de la Maison des sciences de l'homme d'Aquitaine. ISBN 978-2-85892-285-7.
Bost, Jean-Pierre (2009). L'Empire romain et les sociétés provinciales: recueil d'articles. Scripta Antiqua. Bordeaux: Ausonius. ISBN 978-2-35613-014-3.
Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Paris: Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.
Duval, Paul-Marie (1989) [1955]. "Les peuples de l'Aquitaine d'après la liste de Pline". Travaux sur la Gaule (1946–1986). Publications de l'École française de Rome. Vol. 116. Rome: École française de Rome. pp. 721–737. Originally published in Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes 29 (1955), pp. 214–227.
Falileyev, Alexander (2010). Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-Names: A Celtic Companion to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications.