
The Fenni were an ancient people of
northeastern Europe, first described by
Cornelius Tacitus 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 ...
'' in AD 98.
Ancient accounts
The Fenni are first mentioned by
Cornelius Tacitus 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 ...
'' in 98 A.D. Their location is uncertain, due to the vagueness of Tacitus' account: ''"The
Venedi overrun in their predatory excursions all the woody and mountainous tracts between the Peucini and the Fenni"''.
[Tacitus G.46] The Greco-Roman geographer
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 ...
, who produced his ''
Geographia
The ''Geography'' (, , "Geographical Guidance"), also known by its Latin names as the ' and the ', is a gazetteer, an atlas, and a treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire. Originally wri ...
'' in ca. 150 AD, mentions a people called the ''Phinnoi'' (Φιννοι), generally believed to be synonymous with the Fenni. He locates them in two different areas: a northern group in northern ''Scandia'' (
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
), then believed to be an island; and a southern group, apparently dwelling to the East of the upper
Vistula river
The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra ...
(SE Poland). It remains unclear what was the relationship between the two groups.
The next ancient mention of the Fenni/Finni is in the ''
Getica
''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'' (), written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the ori ...
'' of 6th-century chronicler
Jordanes
Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life.
He wrote two works, one on R ...
. In his description of the island of ''Scandza'' (Scandinavia), he mentions three groups with names similar to Ptolemy's Phinnoi, the ''Screrefennae'', ''Finnaithae'' and ''mitissimi Finni'' ("softest Finns"). The Screrefennae is believed to mean the "skiing Finns" and are generally identified with Ptolemy's northern Phinnoi and today's Finns. The Finnaithae have been identified with the
Finnveden
Finnveden or Finnheden is one of the ancient ''small lands'' of Småland. It corresponded to the hundreds of Sunnerbo, Östbo and Västbo. Finnveden had its own judicial system and laws, as did the other ''small lands''. Finnveden is situated ar ...
of southern Sweden. It is unclear who the ''mitissimi Finni'' was.
Ethno-linguistic affiliation
Tacitus was unsure whether to classify the Fenni as
Germanic or
Sarmatian
The Sarmatians (; ; Latin: ) were a large confederation of Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Iranian Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe from about the 5th century BCE to the 4t ...
.
The vagueness of his account has left the identification of the Fenni open to a variety of theories. It has been suggested that the Romans may have used ''Fenni'' as a generic name, to denote the various non-Germanic (i.e.
Balto-Slavic
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic languages, Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits ...
and
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...
) tribes of north-eastern Europe.
[R. Bosi, ''The Lapps'' (1960) pp44-7] Against this argument is the fact that Tacitus distinguishes the Fenni from other probably non-Germanic peoples of the region, such as the
Aestii
The Aesti (also Aestii, Astui or Aests) were an ancient people first described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his treatise ''Germania'' (circa 98 AD). According to Tacitus, the territory of Aesti was located somewhere east of the ''Suiones'' ...
and the
Veneti.
It has also been suggested that Tacitus' Fenni could be the ancestors of the modern
Finnish people
Finns or Finnish people (, ) are a Baltic Finns, Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these cou ...
.
Juha Pentikäinen writes that Tacitus may well have been describing the
Sámi
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
or the proto-Finns when referring to the Fenni, noting some archeologists have identified these people as indigenous to Fennoscandia.
[Juha Pentikäinen, ''Kalevala Mythology'', Indiana University Press, 1999, p226] The context of Fenni has also included the Finnic
Estonians
Estonians or Estonian people () are a Finnic ethnic group native to the Baltic Sea region in Northern Europe, primarily their nation state of Estonia.
Estonians primarily speak the Estonian language, a language closely related to other Finni ...
throughout different interpretations. Nevertheless, according to some linguists, certain linguistic evidence may be interpreted supporting the idea of an archaic
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
dialect and unknown
Paleo-European languages
The Paleo-European languages (sometimes also called Old European languages) are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken in Neolithic () and Bronze Age Europe () prior to the spread of the Indo-European and Uralic families of languages. Th ...
existing in north-eastern Baltic Sea region before the spread of Finno-Ugric languages like Proto-Sámi and Proto-Finnic in the early Bronze Age around 1800 BC. However, in Tacitus's time (1st century AD) Finno-Ugric languages (Proto-Sámi and Proto-Finnic) were the main languages in northern Fennoscandia.
Another theory is that Tacitus' Fenni and Ptolemy's northern Phinnoi were the same people and constituted the original Sámi people of northern
Fennoscandia
__NOTOC__
Fennoscandia (Finnish language, Finnish, Swedish language, Swedish and ; ), or the Fennoscandian Peninsula, is a peninsula in Europe which includes the Scandinavian Peninsula, Scandinavian and Kola Peninsula, Kola peninsulas, mainland ...
, making Tacitus' description the first historical record of them, and the mention of two different "Phinnoi" groups may suggest that there was already a division between Finns and Sámi. But while this may seem a plausible identification for the Phinnoi of northern Scandinavia, it is dubious for Tacitus' Fenni. Tacitus' Fenni (and Ptolemy's southern Phinnoi) were clearly based in continental Europe, not in the Scandinavian peninsula, and were thus outside the modern range of the Sámi. Against this, there is some archaeological evidence that the Sámi range may have been wider in antiquity.
Sámi toponyms are found as far as Southern Finland and Karelia
The uncertainties have led some scholars to conclude that Tacitus' Fenni is a meaningless label, impossible to ascribe to any particular region or ethnic group. But Tacitus appears to relate the Fenni geographically to the
Peucini
The Bastarnae, Bastarni or Basternae, also known as the Peuci or Peucini, were an ancient people who are known from Greek and Roman records to have inhabited areas north and east of the Carpathian Mountains between about 300 BC and about 300 AD, ...
(Bastarnae) and the
Venedi, albeit imprecisely, stating that the latter habitually raided the "forests and mountains" between the other two. He also gives a relatively detailed description of the Fenni's lifestyle.
Material culture
''Fenni'' seems to have been a form of the proto-Germanic word ''*fanþian-'', denoting "wanderers" or "hunting folk", although
Vladimir Orel
Vladimir Emmanuilovich Oryol (; 9 February 1952 – 5 August 2007) was a Russian linguistics, linguist, professor, and etymology, etymologist.
Biography
At the Moscow State University he studied theoretical linguistics (1971) and structural li ...
viewed its etymology as unclear and listed a couple of alternative proposals (i.e. a derivation from Proto-Celtic *þenn- "hill").
Tacitus describes the Fenni as follows:
In wonderful savageness live the nation of the Fenni, and in beastly poverty, destitute of arms, of horses, and of homes; their food, the common herbs; their apparel, skins; their bed, the earth; their only hope in their arrows, which for want of iron they point with bones. Their common support they have from the chase, women as well as men; for with these the former wander up and down, and crave a portion of the prey. Nor other shelter have they even for their babes, against the violence of tempests and ravening beasts, than to cover them with the branches of trees twisted together; this a reception for the old men, and hither resort the young. Such a condition they judge happier than the painful occupation of cultivating the ground, than the labour of rearing houses than the agitations of hope and fear attending the defense of their own property or the seizing that of others. Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.
This description is of a lifestyle much more primitive than that of the medieval Sámi, who were pastoralists living off herds of reindeer and inhabiting sophisticated tents of deer hide. But the archaeological evidence suggests that the proto-Sámi and Proto-Finns had a lifestyle more akin to Tacitus' description.
See also
*
Finn (ethnonym)
The name ''Finn'' is an ethnonym that in ancient times usually referred to the Sámi peoples, but now refers almost exclusively to the Finns.
The probable cognates like ''Fenni'', ''Phinnoi'', ''Finnum'', and ''Skrithfinni'' / ''Scridefinnum'' fi ...
*
Finnic
*
Sitones
The Sitones were a Germanic people living somewhere in Northern Europe in the first century CE. They are mentioned only by Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in Germania. Tacitus considered them similar to Suiones (ancestors of modern Swedes) apart fro ...
*
Finningia
Citations
References
Ancient
*
Jordanes
Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life.
He wrote two works, one on R ...
''
Getica
''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'' (), written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the ori ...
'' (ca. AD 550)
*
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 ...
''
Geographia
The ''Geography'' (, , "Geographical Guidance"), also known by its Latin names as the ' and the ', is a gazetteer, an atlas, and a treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire. Originally wri ...
'' (ca. AD 150)
*
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...
''
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 ...
'' (ca. AD 100)
Modern
* Anderson, J.G.D. (1958) Textual note to Tacitus' ''Germania''
* Bosi, Roberto (1960): ''The Lapps''
* Hansen, L.I. & Olsen, B. (2004): ''Samenes Historie fram til 1750''
* Kinsten, Silje Bergum (2000)
"The Northern Sami People"(The Norway Post, 19 August 2000)
* Pirinen, Kauko ''The settlement of Finland begins'' in Eino Jutikkala (ed.) ''A History of Finland'' (trans. Paul Sjoblom)
* Tägil, Sven (1995)
''Ethnicity and nation building in the Nordic world''
*{{cite journal , first=Ian , last=Whitaker , title=Tacitus' ''Fenni'' and Ptolemy's ''Phinnoi'' , journal=The Classical Journal , volume=75 , issue=3 , year=1980 , pages=215–224 , jstor=3297154, url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3297154
Ancient peoples of Europe
Hunter-gatherers of Europe
Finno-Ugric peoples