Aulerci Cenomani

The Aulerci Cenomani (or Aulerci Cenomanni) were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the modern Sarthe department during the Iron Age and the Roman period. The Cenomani were the most powerful of the Aulerci tribes.[1]

This article is about the Cenomani in Gallia Celtica. For the Cenomani in Cisalpine Gaul, see Cenomani (Cisalpine Gaul).
Cenomani gold coin, 5th-1st century BCE, French Gaul
A map of Gaul in the 1st century BC, showing the relative positions of the Celtic tribes

Name

Attestations

They are mentioned as Aulercos and Aulercis, Cenomanis totidem [all the same] by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC),[2] Aulerci .... Cenomani by Pliny (1st c. AD),[3] as Au̓lírkioioi̔ oi̔ Kenománnoi (Αὐλίρκιοιοἱ οἱ Κενομάννοι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD),[4] and as Ceromannos in the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD).[5][6]

An unrelated tribe living near Massalia, in southern Gaul, was also named Cenomani.[7] A part of the Cenomani or another homonym tribe settled in Cisalpine Gaul after the Celtic invasion of the Italian Peninsula in the early 4th century BC.[1][7]

Etymology

The meaning of the Gaulish ethnonym Cenomani remains uncertain. The prefix probably stems from the root ceno-, which could have meant 'far, long'. The second element may derive from manos ('good'), or else from the root *menH- ('to go'), with Cenomani as 'the far-going one'.[8] Pierre-Yves Lambert has also proposed a connection to a verbal stem *cene/o- (cf. OIr. cinid 'to spring from, to descend from', Welsh cenedl 'family'). The general meaning would be 'the begotten ones'.[9]

The city of Le Mans, attested c. 400 AD as Ceromannos (Cenomannis in 1101, *Cemans, then Le Mans from the 12th c.), and the Maine region, attested in the 6th c. AD as in Cinomanico (in pago Celmanico in 765, *Cemaine, then Le Maine from the 12th c.), are named after the Gallic tribe.[10]

Geography

The tribe lived west of the Carnutes between the Seine and the Loire.

Their chief town was Vindinum or Suindinum (corrupted into 'Subdinnum'), afterwards Civitas Cenomanorum (whence Le Mans, and much later the Cenomanian geological age) and later Cenomani as in the Notitia Dignitatum, the original name of the town, as usual in the case of Gallic cities, being replaced by that of the people.[11]

History

According to Caesar (Bell. Gall. vii.75.3), they assisted Vercingetorix in the great rising (52 BC) with a force of 5000 men. Under Augustus they formed a civitas stipendiaria (Roman tributary town) of Gallia Lugdunensis, and in the 4th century part of Gallia Lugdunensis III.[11]

Cisalpine Cenomani

There was another people called Cenomani that held extensive territory in Cisalpine Gaul; however, there is disagreement whether they are one and the same people. The orthography and the quantity of the penultimate vowel of Cenomani have given rise to discussion. According to Arbois de Jubainville, the Cenomni of Italy are not identical with the Cehomni (or Cenomanni) of Gaul. In the case of the latter, the survival of the syllable man in "Le Mans" is due to the stress laid on the vowel; had the vowel been short and unaccented, it would have disappeared. In Italy, Cenomani is the name of a people; in Gaul, merely a surname of the Aulerci.[11] William Smith adopts the difference, placing the peoples in two separate articles in his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. On the other hand, if the tradition recorded by Cato (in Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii. 19. s. 23) is true, that the Cenomani formed a settlement near Massilia (modern Marseille), among the Volcae, this could indicate a route that the Cenomani took to Cisalpine Gaul in Italy. According to Livy, the Cenomani of Cisalpine Gaul arrived after the expedition of Bellovesus, led by Helitovius, and are credited with the foundation of Brixia, or Brescia, and Verona.

References
  1. Kruta 2000, p. 440.
  2. Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 2:34, 7:75:3.
  3. Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:107.
  4. Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:8:8.
  5. Notitia Dignitatum, oc 42, 35.
  6. Falileyev 2010, s.v. Aulerci Cenomani.
  7. Lafond & Sartori 2006.
  8. Delamarre 2003, pp. 114, 215.
  9. Lambert 2005, p. 225.
  10. Nègre 1990, p. 153.
  11. Chisholm 1911.

Bibliography
  • Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.
  • Falileyev, Alexander (2010). Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-names: A Celtic Companion to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. CMCS. ISBN 978-0955718236.
  • Lafond, Yves; Sartori, Antonio (2006). "Cenomanni". Brill's New Pauly. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e230080.
  • Lambert, Pierre-Yves (2005). "The place names of Lugdunensis [Λουγδουνησία]". In de Hoz, Javier; Luján, Eugenio R.; Sims-Williams, Patrick (eds.). New approaches to Celtic place-names in Ptolemy's Geography. Ediciones Clásicas. pp. 215–251. ISBN 978-8478825721.
  • Nègre, Ernest (1990). Toponymie générale de la France. Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02883-7.
  • Kruta, Venceslas (2000). Les Celtes, histoire et dictionnaire : des origines à la romanisation et au christianisme. Robert Laffont. ISBN 2-221-05690-6.
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