Vennones

The Vennones or Vennonetes were a Rhaetian tribe dwelling in the northern Alps, between Chur and Lake Constance, during the Iron Age and the Roman era.

Name

They are mentioned as Ouénnōnes (Οὐέννωνες) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD),[1] as Vennonenses (var. -onetes) by Pliny (1st c. AD),[2] and as Ouénnōnetes (Οὐέννωνετες) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).[3][4]

The etymology of the name remains obscure. If Celtic, and not Rhaetic, it could be derived from the root ueno- ('friend'), with a sound shift -n- > -nn- attested in other cases (e.g. Vena / Venna),[5][4] or else from to uenno- (< *uegno-), meaning 'chariot'.[6]

Geography

The Vennones dwelled in the northern Alps, between Chur and Lake Constance.[7] Their territory was located north of the Calucones, west of the Estiones, Focunates and Genaunes, south of the Brigantii.[8]

Pliny described the Vennones and Sarunetes as "Rhaetian tribes living near the sources of the river Rhine".[2]

History

They were subjugated by the Roman forces of Publius Silius Nerva in 16 BC.[7]

The Vennonetes appear as the third tribe in the inscription on the Tropaeum Alpium. In the secondary tradition of the text by Pliny the Elder their position in the list was exchanged with the Venostes and the Vennonetes appear as the fourth tribe.[9]

References
  1. Strabo. Geōgraphiká, 4:6:6, 4:6:9.
  2. Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 3:135.
  3. Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:12:2.
  4. Falileyev 2010, s.v. Vennon(et)es.
  5. Evans 1967, p. 279.
  6. Delamarre 2003, p. 127.
  7. Frei-Stolba 2011.
  8. Talbert 2000, Map 19: Raetia.
  9. Jules Formigé: La dédicace du Trophée des Alpes (La Turbie). In: Gallia. Vol. 13, 1955, No. 1, p. 101—102.

Primary sources
  • Pliny (1938). Natural History. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Rackham, H. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674993648.
  • Strabo (1923). Geography. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Jones, Horace L. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674990562.

Bibliography
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