Coca
SegoviaCastilla y León
Pre-Roman toponym attested from the 2nd century BC as Cauca, capital of the Vaccaei according to Roman sources (Titus Livius, Appian, Pliny the Elder). The most sustained etymology —Joaquín Gorrochategui, Francisco Villar— derives it from an Indo-European base *kauk- with the value of 'elevation, rounded height, prominence', compatible with the geographical position of the Vaccaean oppidum on the Eresma river meseta. The Castilian form Coca preserves the toponym with the sole transformation of the final vowel loss characteristic of peninsular Romance.
Cauca was among the principal Celtiberian civitates of the Duero valley. Roman sources describe it as the capital of the Vaccaei, Celtiberian people of the territory between the Pisuerga and Esla rivers. The conquest of Cauca by Rome was one of the bloodiest episodes of the Celtiberian Wars: in 151 BC, the consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus besieged the city under the pretext of helping a local faction, promised peace to its inhabitants and, once the surrender was accepted, ordered the slaughter of the twenty thousand adult males of the population. The episode was narrated by Appian (Iberica, 51–52) as an example of Roman treachery. Cauca survived as Roman municipium and gave to the Empire one of its most significant emperors: Theodosius I the Great (347–395), the last Roman emperor to govern simultaneously the two halves of the Empire. Visigothic presence in Coca is attested by the early Christian basilica of the Martyrs (6th century), and the Muslim presence between the 8th and 11th centuries left one of the few civil Mudéjar architectures preserved standing: the castle of Coca, raised between 1453 and 1495 by commission of Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Seville.
Evolution of the name
- *kauk- pre-Roman Indo-European before the 3rd century BC
- Cauca Iberian / Latinized 2nd centuries BC–5th
- Coca medieval Castilian from the 9th century
Glossary
- Attested
- A form or word documented in writing in historical sources; opposed to "reconstructed" (forms proposed by comparative inference but not actually documented).
- Etymology
- The origin and history of a word and the phonetic and semantic changes it has undergone. An etymology may be confirmed, probable or disputed depending on documentary attestations and linguistic parallels.
- Mudéjar castle of Coca
- Fortress raised between 1453 and 1495 by commission of the archbishop of Seville Alonso de Fonseca, in late Mudéjar style on concentric quadrangular plan with four polygonal towers at the corners and central keep. Built by Moorish master builders with traditional Islamic techniques (brick, polychrome cuerda seca tiling, geometric decoration), it is one of the few civil Mudéjar castles preserved in Spain and an anticipatory model of modern Renaissance fortification. Declared National Monument in 1928.
- Oppidum
- A pre-Roman fortified settlement on high ground, typically Celtic or Proto-Celtiberian. The Cantabrian coast abounds in oppida that gave rise to later cities: Gigia/Xixón on the Santa Catalina hill.
- Pre-Roman
- Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
- Vaccaei
- Celtiberian people of pre-Roman Hispania situated in the middle Duero valley between the Pisuerga and Esla rivers, with territory approximately corresponding to the current provinces of Valladolid, Palencia, Zamora and northern Segovia. Their main civitates were Cauca (Coca), Pintia (Padilla de Duero), Septimanca (Simancas) and Helmantica (Salamanca). They minted coinage in the northeastern Iberian alphabet between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Known in Roman sources for their communal cereal cultivation regime, unique in pre-Roman Iberia.
Sources
- Apiano — Iberia, 51–52
- Gorrochategui, J. — Onomástica antigua de los Pirineos
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Camino de Madrid