The Vocontii (Gaulish: *Uocontioi; Greek: Οὐοκόντιοι, Οὐοκοντίων) were a Gallic people dwelling on the western foothills of the Alps during the Iron Age and the Roman period. The Vocontii settled in the region in the 3rd century BC at the latest. Pompeius Trogus, a Gallo-Roman historian and citizen of Vasio during the 1st century BC, was a member of the Vocontii. During the Roman period, they were probably at the head of a confederation that included the Sogiontii, Avantici, Sebaginni and Vertamocorii. Name They are mentioned as Vocontiorum by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), Livy (late 1st c. BC), Pliny (1st c. AD) and Pomponius Mela (mid-1st c. AD), as Ouokóntioi (Οὐοκόντιοι) and Ouokontíōn (Οὐοκοντίων) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), Ou̓okóntioi (Οὐοκόντιοι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD), and as Bocontii on the Tabula Peutingeriana. The ethnonym Vocontī is a latinized form of Gaulish *Uocontioi. It is generally understood to mean 'twenty' (cf. Gaul. tricontis 'thirty'), that is to say the 'twenty clans' or 'twenty tribes', or alternatively 'the two hundred' (cf. Gaul. conto- 'one hundred'), after a Gallic custom of including numbers in tribal names (e.g. Vo-corii, Tri-corii, Petru-corii, Suess-iones). Geography Territory The territory of the Vocontii was bordered in the north by the Isère river, in the west by the valley of the Rhône river, in the south by the Mont Ventoux and the lower reaches of the Durance river, and in the east by the upper reaches of the Durance. They lived south of the Allobroges, east of the Segovellauni and the Cavares, and north of the Salluvii. Settlements During the Roman period, the Vocontii became a civitas foederata and had two capitals: Vasio (Vaison-la-Romaine) and Lucus Augusti (Luc-en-Diois), both benefiting from a ius Latii. The Roman town of Noviomagus was probably Nyons. This town and Vasio (Vaison-la-Romaine) were not on the mountains. They were at the foot of the first prealpine ridges, at the edge of the plain of the Rhône (the Dentelles de Montmirail were just to the south of Vasio; the Éssaillon, Garde-Grosse, Saint Jaumes and Vaux formed a half crescent by Noviomagus). History During the 4th century BCE, the Celtic Vocontii became settled there, with an oppidum south of modern Vaison; this seems to have been used to control trade between the Rhône and Durance rivers (Meffre). The earliest historical mention of the Vocontii is from 218 BCE during the crossing of the Alps