(anc. geog.), a district of Terraconensis, on the Oceanus Cantabricus or bay of Biscay; now Biscay. The inhabitants were famous for their warlike character. In conjunction with the Asturians†, they carried on desperate wars with the Romans; but were subdued by them about 25 years before Christ. Being impatient, however, of a foreign yoke, they in a few years revolted. Most of their youth had been already taken prisoners by the Romans, and sold for slaves to the neighbouring nations; but having found means to break their chains, they cut the throats of their masters; and returning into their own country, attacked the Roman garrisons with incredible fury. Agrippa marched against them with great expedition; but, on his arrival, met with so vigorous a resistance, that his soldiers began to despair of ever being able to reduce them. As the Cantabrians had waged war with the Romans for upwards of 200 years, they were well acquainted with their manner of fighting, no way inferior to them in courage, and were now become desperate; well knowing, that if they were conquered, after having so often attempted to recover their liberty, they must expect the most severe usage, and cruel slavery. Animated with this reflection, they fell upon the Romans with a fury hardly to be expressed, routed them in several engagements, and defended themselves when attacked by the enemy with such intrepidity, that Agrippa afterwards owned, that he had never, either by sea or land, been engaged in a more dangerous enterprise. That brave commander was obliged to use intrigues, menaces, and to brand some of his legionaries with ignominy, before he could bring them to enter the lists with such a formidable enemy. But having at last, with much ado, prevailed upon them to try the chance of an engagement in the open field, he so animated them by his example, that, after a most obstinate dispute, he gained a complete victory, which indeed cost him dear, but put an end to that destructive war. All the Cantabrians fit to bear arms were cut in pieces; their cattle and strong holds taken and raised; and their women, children, and old men (none else being left alive), were obliged to abandon the mountainous places, and settle in the plain.

Dr Wallis seems to make the Cantabrian the ancient language of all Spain; which, according to him, like the Gaulish, gave way to a kind of broken Latin called *romance*, or *romanes*; which by degrees was refined into the Castilian or present Spanish. But we can hardly suppose, that so large a country, inhabited by such a variety of people, spoke all the same language. The ancient Cantabrian, in effect, is still found to subsist in the more barren and mountainous parts of the province of Biscay, Asturias, and Navarre, as far as Bayonne, much as the British does in Wales; but the people only talk it; for writing, they use either the Spanish or French, as they happen to live under the one or the other nation. Some attribute this to a jealousy of foreigners learning the mysteries of their language; others to a poverty of words and expressions. The Cantabrian does not appear to have any affinity with any other known language, abating that some Spanish words have been adopted in it for things whose use the Biscayens were anciently unacquainted with. Its pronunciation is not disagreeable. The Lord's prayer, in the Cantabrian tongue, runs thus: *Gure aiia cerve-tan icena, santifika bedi hire icena, etbor bedi hire refuma, eguin bedi hire vorondatea cerva becala lurrean ere*, &c.