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New Vistas on the Distant Past

Wales and Western England

• Cornovii: Lived east of the Ordovices. Their towns were Deva, where the Legion XX Victorious was based [Chester] and Viroconium [Wroxeter].^{1Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, II.2.} The projecting Wirral probably gave the tribe its name, corn- meaning horn. Viroconium was a Latinisation of a Celtic name meaning the settlement of Virico. It appears in the Ravenna Cosmography in mangled form as Utriconion Cornoviorum, the addition of the tribe indicating that it was the civitas capital, as is also recorded in a forum dedicatory inscription from Wroxeter. The Romano-British town was founded as a fort in the 50s AD, but converted to civilian use within decades. While many Roman towns were left to crumble after Britannia left the Roman Empire, some degree of urban life continued in Wroxeter for 150 years.^{2R. White and P. Barker, Wroxeter: Life and death of a Roman city (1998), pp. 9, 32, 42, 128 and fig. 40 on p.78; I.A. Richmond and O.G.S. Crawford, The British Section of the Ravenna Cosmography, Archaeologia, vol. 93 (1949) pp.1-50.} Further reading: Graham Webster, The Cornovii (Peoples of Roman Britain series) (1991).
• Deceangli: This tribe is not mentioned by Ptolemy, but by Tacitus, who recounts the Roman assault on the Ceangi.^{3Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome, XII. 32.} Tegeingl was a hundred in north-east Wales, which belonged to the Kingdom of Gwynedd until snatched by the Anglian kingdom of Mercia in the late 8th century. It was reconquered by Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd in the 12th century.
• Demetae: Lived to the south and west of the Trinovantes. Their towns were Luentinum [Pumsaint, Carmarthenshire] and Moridunum [Carmarthen].^{4Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, II.2.}The Romans mined gold at Dolaucothi, near Pumsaint and built a fort at Carmarthen. The territory of the Demetae appears to have passed seamlessly to the medieval kingdom of Dyfed in south-west Wales. Gildas, in his tirade against the 6th-century kings of British tribes, does not spare Vortipor, thou foolish tyrant of the Demetians.^{5Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, III.31.} A memorial stone to Voteporis the protector is now in Carmarthen Museum. Ogham letters down the side of the stone render the name as Votecorix.^{6Celtic Inscribed Stones (Online database created by University College London 1999): CDWYR/1 and CDWYR/1/2.} The majority of ogham-inscribed stones found in Wales are concentrated in Dyfed.^{7N. Edwards, A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales, vol. 2 (2007).} This lends support to the claim in the 8th-century Irish epic The Expulsion of the Déisi that Eochaid son of Artchorp had settled in Demed and founded a dynasty.^{8K. Meyer (ed.), The Expulsion of the Dessi, Y Cymmrodor, vol. 14 (1901), pp. 101–135 (112-13).} Although much of this tale was fabricated to wreath in glory the chiefs of Déisi Muman, who actually sprang from déisi (vassal people), it included a pedigree for the kings of Dyfed which has similarities with the Dyfed royal line as preserved in Welsh genealogies, at least as far back as Triffyn or Trestin, who appears in the Irish genealogy as Triphun, the great-grandson of Eochaid, but in the Welsh version as a descendant of Maxen Wledic. Both pedigrees include Vortipor under various spellings as the grandson of the said Triffyn.^{9Archaeologia Cambrensis, vol. 9 (1892), pp. 64-5.} Another Irish sept which settled in south Wales was the Uí Liatháin (literally grandsons of Liatháin). Nennius tell us that the sons of Liethan occupied the region of the Demetae, as well as Gower and Kidwelly. Philip Rance argues that these various Irish settlers were bands of landless warriors (fianna), who had been recruited by the Roman authorities in the latter half of the 4th century to protect Demetia from Irish raids. He also offers a plausible resolution of the conflicting pedigrees. Maxen Wledic is the Welsh rendering of Magnus Maximus, Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388, whom several Welsh royal dynasties claimed as their illustrious founder. This has often been dismissed as aggrandisment of lineages, but may instead reflect the deduction of pedigrees from king-lists, starting with Maximus as overlord. In that case Triffyn would be the first Irish protector of Demetia/Dyfed, which title passed down to Vortipor.^{10P. Rance, Attacotti, Déisi and Magnus Maximus: The Case for Irish Federates in Late Roman Britain, Britannia, vol. 32 (2001), pp. 243-270.}
• Gangani: Ptolemy recorded a Ganganorum promontory, which can be identified by its co-ordinates as the Lleyn Peninsula.^{11Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, II.2.} This may be a relic of a former tribe, gone by Ptolemy's day, or a small community which escaped other notice. The hillfort of Tre'r Ceiri was built on the peninsula c. 100 BC and remained in use until the end of Roman occupation of Britain.
• Ordovices: Lived south and west of the Brigantes. Their towns were Mediolanum [Whitchurch] and Brannogenium [Leintwardine].^{12Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, II.2.} They wiped out a squadron of Roman cavalry stationed in their territory shortly before the arrival of Agricola, who moved against them, but found the enemy elusive.^{13Tacitus, Agricola, 18.}
• Silures: Lived to the east of the Demetae. Their town, according to Ptolemy, was the otherwise unknown Bullaeum.^{14Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, II.2.} The Romano-British town of Venta Silurum [Caerwent] first appears in the Antonine Itinerary. Venta was the name of three Romano-British civitas capitals, so it perhaps meant something like trading place or market town. Each of these was distinguished from the others by the addition of the tribal name. (See Iceni and Belgae below.) A Roman inscription referring to the tribal council of the Silures was discovered in Caerwent.^{15RIB 311.} Tacitus considered the swarthy faces of the Silures, and their generally curly hair, as evidence that their ancestors were Iberian.^{16Tacitus, Agricola, 11.} He also described them as a naturally fierce people. They happily rallied to the cause of the defeated British leader Caractacus.^{17Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, 12.33.} Further reading: Raymond Howell, Searching for the Silures: The Iron Age in South-East Wales (2006).

Notes

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