Ethnic affiliations and political and cultural boundaries between the river Po and the Alps

In his geographical description, Strabo outlines the Alps as a large orographical system as well as an ethnographical one; his representation results from a mental map where mountains, rivers and roads are the main reference points (IV, 6, 1-2), whilst in the description of the Cisalpine (V, 1, 1-12) the rivers, the roads and the towns play the role of primary landmarks. First, orography and hydrography help to define the boundaries inside and outside the Po valley, the large lowland that the Po river splits neatly in two parts (‘this side’ and ‘across’ the river: Cispadana and Transpadana respectively), where many different peoples lived. The major ethnic groups surviving the process of romanization appear to be strongly linked to their own territories, which are still well recognizable; the full Roman citizenship granted to the inhabitants of the Transpadana gave the same status to the all of them, but it could not cancel some of the ancient cultural and regional borders.