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.

Name

Attestations

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

An unrelated tribe living near Massalia, in southern Gaul, was also named Cenomani. 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.

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'. 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'.

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.

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.

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''.

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. 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

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Historical Celtic peoples
Gauls
Cenomani
Tribes involved in the Gallic Wars