Sordones

Sordones or SARDONES, as the name has sometimes been written, a people in Gallia. Mela (2.5) writes: after the Salsulae fons is the ora Sordonum, and the small streams Telis and Tichis; the Colonia Ruscino, and the vicus Illiberis. Pliny (3.4) begins his description of Gallia Narbonensis from the foot of the Pyrenees. He says: On the coast is the regio Sordonum or Sardonum, and in the interior the Consuarani; the rivers Techum, Vernodubrum; towns, Illiberis and Ruscino. These Sordones are the Sordi of Avienus (Or. Marit. 562):--

Sordus inde denique

Populus agebat inter avios locos

Ac pertinentes usque ad interius mare,

Qua pinifertae stant Pyrenae vertices,

Inter ferarum lustra ducebat greges,

Et arva late et gurgitemn ponti premit:

as I. Vossius reads the passage in his edition of Mela. The Sordi then occupied the coast of the Mediterranean from the Pyrenees northward, and the neighbouring part of the interior at the north foot of the Pyrenees. Ptolemy, as D'Anville observes, does not mention the Sordones, and he has made the territory of the Volcae Tectosages comprehend Illiberis and Ruscino. The Sordones probably occupied the whole of the territory called Roussillon, and they would be in possession of that pass of the Pyrenees called Col de Pertus, which is defended by the fort of Bellegarde. They bordered on the Consorani. [CONSORANI]

[G.L]