- Carnutes
The Carnutes (Latin "Carnuti"), a powerful
Celt ic people in the heart of independentGaul , dwelled in a particularly extensive territory between the Sequana (Seine ) and the Liger (Loire ) rivers. Their lands later corresponded to the dioceses of Chartres, Orleans and Blois, that is, the greater part of the modern departments of Eure-et-Loir, Loiret, Loir-et-Cher. The territory of the Carnutes had the reputation among Roman observers of being the political and religious center of the Gallic nations. The chief fortified towns were "Cenabum" (mistakenly "Genabum"), the modernOrleans , where a bridge crossed the Loire, and "Autricum" (or "Carnutes," thusChartres ). The great annual Druidic assembly mentioned by Caesar took place in one or the other of these towns.Livy 's history records the legendary tradition that the Carnutes had been one of the tribes which accompaniedBellovesus in his invasion of Italy during the reign ofTarquinius Priscus .In the 1st century BCE, the Carnutes minted coins, usually struck with dies, but sometimes cast in an alloy of high tin content called "potin." Their coinage turns up in hoards well outside their home territories, in some cases so widely distributed in the finds that the place of coinage is not secure. The
iconography of theirnumismatics includes the motives of heads with traditional Celtictorc s; a wolf with a star; a galloping horse; thetriskelion . Many coins show an eagle, with the lunar crescent, with a serpent or with a wheel with six or four spokes or apentagram matic star, or beneath a hand holding a branch with berries,holly perhaps. The wheel with four spokes forms a cross within a circle, an almost universal image since Neolithic times. Sometimes the circle is a ring of granules. It would be easy to make too much of the symbol as it appears on coinage, but among the Celts, rather than a solar symbol it may represent the cycle of the year divided in its four seasons [http://www.cgb.fr/monnaies/vso/v15/images/image713d.html?depart=557] . SeeCross .In the time of Caesar the carnutes were dependents of the
Remi , who on one occasion interceded for them. In the winter of 58 - 57 BCE, Caesar imposed a protectorate over the Carnutes and set up his choice of king, Tasgetius, picked from the ruling clan. Within three years, the Carnutes had assassinated the puppet king. OnFebruary 13 , 53 BCE the Carnutes of Cenabum massacred all the Roman merchants stationed in the town as well as one of Caesar's commissariat officers. The uprising was swiftly a general one throughout Gaul, under the leadership ofVercingetorix . Cenabum was burnt by Caesar, the men put to the sword and women and children sold as slaves, and the booty distributed among his soldiers, an effective way of financing the conquest of Gaul. During the war that followed, the Carnutes were able to send 12,000 fighting men to relieveAlesia , but shared in the defeat of the Gallic army. Having attacked the Bituriges Cubi, who appealed to Caesar for assistance, they were forced to submit. Cenabum, however, remained a mass of ruins garrisoned by two Roman legions for years.After they had been pacified, though not Romanized, under Augustus, the Carnutes, as one of the peoples of
Gallia Lugdunensis , were raised to the rank of "civitas soda" or "foederati ", retaining their own self-governing institutions, continuing to mint coins, and only bound to render military service to the emperor. Up to the 3rd century Autricum (later Carnutes, whence Chartres) was the capital, but in 275Aurelian refounded Cenabum ordaining it no longer a vicus but a "civitas " and named it "Aurelianum" or "Aurelianensis urbs" (thus eventually "Orleans").See
Livy , v.34;Julius Caesar , "Belli Gall." v. 25, 29, vii. 8, II, 75, viii. 5, 31 (see under "cenabuns);Strabo "Geographia" iv.2 - 3;Ptolemy "Geographia," ii.8.External links
* [http://www.cgb.fr/monnaies/vso/v15/fr/sommaire57d5.html?sommaire=Celtique%2C%20monnayage%20des%20Carnutes&nbfic=1515 Monnayage des Carnutes] : detailed illustrations of numismatics
* [http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/celtic/gaul/carnutes/t.html Coins minted by the Carnutes, 1st century BCE]
* [http://morgann.moussier.free.fr/orleans/histoire/Origines.html Histoire de la ville d'Orléans"] : map of the Carnutes territory (in French)
*R. Boutrays, "Urbis gentisque Carnutum historia" 1624
*A. Desjardins, "Géographie historique de la Gaule", ii, I876 1893
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