The Sitones were a
Germanic people
The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...
living somewhere in Northern Europe in the first century
CE. They are mentioned only by
Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in
Germania
Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...
. Tacitus considered them similar to
Suiones (ancestors of modern
Swedes
Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...
) apart from one descriptor, namely that women were the ruling sex. Phonetical equivalent of ᚦ (þurisaz) may have been documented equivalent to either T or D, explaining sitones, suiones and suehans as local differences similar to viking age runestone carvings describing siþiuþu, suiþiuþu and suoþiauþu meaning
Svitjod (Sweden).
Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage.
Speculations on the Sitones' background are numerous. According to one theory, the name is a partial misunderstanding of
Sigtuna, one of the central locations in the Swedish kingdom, which much later had a
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
spelling ''Situne''.
Another view is that the "queen" of the Sitones derives by linguistic confusion with an
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
word for "woman" from the name of the
Kvens or Quains.
According to medievalist
Kemp Malone
Kemp Malone (March 14, 1889 – October 13, 1971) was an American medievalist, etymology, etymologist, philologist, and specialist in Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer. He was a lecturer and then professor of English literature at Johns Hopkins Universit ...
(1925), Tacitus' characterization of both the Suiones and the Sitones is "a work of art, not a piece of historical research", with the Sitones' submission to a woman as the logical culminating degeneracy after the Suiones' total submission to their king and surrendering of their weapons to a slave.
Kemp Malone
Kemp Malone (March 14, 1889 – October 13, 1971) was an American medievalist, etymology, etymologist, philologist, and specialist in Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer. He was a lecturer and then professor of English literature at Johns Hopkins Universit ...
, "The Suiones of Tacitus", ''The American Journal of Philology'' 46.2, 1925
pp. 170–76
pp. 173–74.
See also
*
List of Germanic tribes
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
References
{{Germanic peoples
Early Germanic peoples
North Germanic peoples
Prehistory of Sweden
Scandinavia