The Namnetes were a Gallic tribe dwelling near the modern city of

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

during the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and the

Roman period The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

Name

They are mentioned as ''Namnitō͂n'' (Ναμνιτῶν) by

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

(2nd c. BC) and

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

(early 1st c. AD), ''Namnetes'' by

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war. He ...

(mid-1st c. BC) and Pliny (1st c. AD), and as ''Namnē͂tai'' (Ναμνῆται) by

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

(2nd c. AD). The etymology of the

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

''Namnetes'' remains uncertain.

Xavier Delamarre Xavier Delamarre (; born 5 June 1954) is a French linguist, lexicographer, and former diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language. With linguist Romain Garnier, Delamarre is the co-publishing edi ...

has tentatively proposed to interpret the name as 'those of the river', by deriving it from the

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

root *''nem-'' ('curved, bend'), which also gave the Gaulish stem ''nantu''- ('valley, stream'). The element ''namn''- in ''Namnetes'' has also been compared to river names such as the '' Namn-asa'' in northern Spain and the ''Nemun-as'' in Lithuania. According to Blanca María Prósper, however, "Namnetes is a ''locus desperatus'' of Celtic etymology, and to judge from its overall look it probably contains a negative particle. Ethnic names often have an exotic, for us hardly understandable, and usually more complex look than place or river names."

Geography

The Namnetes dwelled between the lower

Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...

, the

Vilaine The Vilaine (; ) is a river in Brittany, in the west of France. The river's source is in the Mayenne ''Département in France, département'' (53), and it flows out into the Atlantic Ocean at Pénestin in the Morbihan ''département'' (56). It is ...

and the

Semnon The Semnon (; ) is a long river in the Mayenne, Maine-et-Loire, Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantique '' départements'', northwestern France. Its source is in Congrier. It flows generally west-northwest. It is a left tributary of the Vilaine in ...

rivers. Their territory was situated west of the

Andecavi The Andecavi (also Andicavi, Andegavi, or Andigavi) were a Gallic tribe dwelling in Aremorica during the Roman period. Name They are mentioned as ''Andecavi'' (var. ''andic''-, ''andeg''-, ''andig''-) by Pliny (1st c. AD), ''Andecavi'' and ...

, south of the Veneti and Redones, and north of the

Pictones The Pictones were a Gallic tribe dwelling south of the Loire river, in the modern departments of Vendée, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne, during the Iron Age and Roman period. Name They are mentioned as ''Pictonibus'' and ''Pictones'' by Julius Caes ...

. Their chief town was Condevincum, corresponding to the modern city of

, and their chief port was known as Portus Nemetum.

History

In the spring 56 BC, during the

Gallic wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, and Switzerland). Gauls, Gallic, Germanic peoples, Germanic, and Celtic Britons, Brittonic trib ...

, the Namnetes allied to the Veneti to fight against the fleet made by

. Decimus Brutus, leader of the Roman fleet, won in the decisive Battle of Morbihan.

Samnitae/Namnete Women's Island

According to

, quoting Poseidonios, there is an island in the Ocean near the outlet of the Loire river which was inhabited by the "women of the Samnitae," which is generally taken to be a mistake and actually refers to the "Namnitae" or Namnetes. No man was ever allowed on the island and the women themselves sailed from it to have intercourse with men on the continent before returning there again. They also had the strange custom of unroofing their temple every year and roofing it again on the same day before sunset, each woman bringing her load to add to the roof. The woman whose load would fall out of her arms was rent to pieces by the rest, and they allegedly carried the pieces round the temple with the cry of "Ev-ah" in a frenetic manner. According to French archaeologist Jean-Louis Brunaux, there are three reasons to consider the story as factual. First, the wet and windy climate of Western Gaul suggest that the Gallic dwellings (made of branches or reed) were re-roofed every year. Second, not to drop new material was, according to

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

, a common religious practice of the Celts. Third,

circumambulation Circumambulation (from Latin ''circum'' around and ''ambulātus ''to walk) is the act of moving around a sacred object or idol. Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of Hindu and Buddhist devotional practice (known in ...

existed as a rite among the Celts according to Poseidonios.Jean-Louis Brunaux. ''Les Druides. Des philosophes chez les barbares.'' Paris, Seuil, 2006, p. 241

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{Authority control Historical Celtic peoples Gauls Tribes in pre-Roman Gaul Tribes involved in the Gallic Wars Nantes