Chieri

Chieri (ˈkjɛːri; Cher) is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont (Italy), located about southeast of Turin, by rail and by road. It borders the following municipalities: Baldissero Torinese, Pavarolo, Montaldo Torinese, Pino Torinese, Arignano, Andezeno, Pecetto Torinese, Riva presso Chieri, Cambiano, Santena, and Poirino. Between the Neolithic and the Iron Age, the original inhabitants of this part of the Italian peninsula were the Ligures. The Ligures living in this area of the Po river plain belonged specifically to the Taurini tribe. The location of Chieri is within the Taurini tribe's territory, in the belt of hills which surround Turin. The original settlement was most likely founded by them, being sited on a prominent hill (on which the church of San Giorgio currently stands) and growing to be the geographical focus of the city centre. Its original name would have been Karreum or a variant thereof (e.g. Karreo/Karrea/Carrea); this is based on the root kar, which possibly means "stone", reflecting the typical Ligurian settlement layout of a stone edifice at the centre of a grouping of other habitations within a village, which would have likely been the original layout of Chieri. Sometime around 400 BCE, Celtic tribes crossed the Alps from Gaul and settled the Po river plain. These peoples mingled with the original Ligures, either through conquest or peaceful cohabitation, and gave rise to a Celto-Ligurian people, inhabiting the region which the Romans would call Cisalpine Gaul, i.e. "Gaul this side of the Alps". The Romans, over the two centuries between 400 and 200 BCE, conducted a prolonged counter-offensive to conquer all of the northern Italian peninsula, partially in response to successive invasions, starting with Gauls led by king Brennus in 391 BCE, and later the Carthaginians under the great general Hannibal Barca in 218 BCE. It is likely sometime after 176 BCE that Cisalpine Gaul was completely subdued by Roman legions, and this would have included the village of Karreum itself.