Tasgetius, the Latinized form of Gaulish Tasgetios or Tasgiitios (d. 54 BC), was a ruler of the Carnutes, a Celtic polity whose territory corresponded roughly with the modern French departments of Eure-et-Loir, Loiret, and Loir-et-Cher. Julius Caesar says that as Roman proconsul he made Tasgetius king in reward for his support during the Gallic Wars.[1] His reign would have begun in late 57 BC, following Caesar's campaign against the Belgic civitates in northern Gaul that year; it ended with his assassination in 54 BC. The overthrow of a king appointed by Caesar was one of the precipitating events that led to the pan-Gallic rebellion of 52 BC under the Arvernian leader Vercingetorix.[2]
- ^ Julius Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 5.25.2. Although Tasgetius is conventionally called a "king," Caesar uses verbal phrases in reference to his rule rather than the noun rex: his ancestors regnum obtinuerant, "had held the kingship," and Tasgetius was in his third year of ruling at the time of his murder: tertium iam hunc annum regnantem.
- ^ Stephen L. Dyson, "Native Revolts in the Roman Empire," Historia 20 (1971), p. 242.
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