Can'tabri

Can'tabri, a rude race of mountaineers in the north of ancient Spain, who inhabited the region south of the Bay of Biscay, named from them the Oceanus Cantabricus. The question of their affinities forms part of one of the most difficult problems in the whole range of ethnology. W. von Humboldt identified them as a remnant of the ancient Iberian population of Western Europe, and found their descendants in the modern Basques of the Pyrenees. The bravery of the Cantabrians was evinced in the Cantabrian war with the Romans, begun under Augustus in 25 B.C., and concluded by Agrippa six years later. Their indomitable spirit is often alluded to by Horace and other poets. Tiberius afterwards stationed garrisons in the towns, but some of the people retreated into their fastnesses among the mountains, where they pre- served their independence. Of their nine towns the chief was Julisbrica.