Ligures
The Ligures (English: Ligurians, Greek: Λιγυες) were an ancient people who gave their name to Liguria, which once stretched from Northern Italy into southern Gaul. The Ligures inhabited what now corresponds to Liguria, northern Tuscany, Piedmont, part of Lombardy, and parts of southeastern France.
Classical references and toponomastics suggests that the Ligurian sphere once extended further into central Italy: according to Hesiod's Catalogues (early 6th century BC) they were one of the three main "barbarian" people ruling over the Western border of the known world (the others being Aethiopians and Scythians). Avienus, in a translation of a voyage account probably from Marseille (4th century BC) speaks of the Ligurian hegemony extending up to North Sea, before they were pushed back by the Celts. Ligurian toponyms has been found in Sicily, Rhone Valley, Corsica and Sardinia.
It is not known for certain whether they were a pre-Indo-European people akin to Iberians; a separate Indo-European branch with Italic and Celtic affinities; or even a branch of the Celts. Kinship between the Ligures and Lepontii has also been proposed. Another theory traces their origin to Betica (modern Andalusia).
The Ligures were assimilated by the Romans, and before that by the Gauls, producing a Celto-Ligurian culture.