(in Spain).
Pliny the Elder, in his
Natural History (4.17.105), claims that Armorica was the older name for
Aquitania and states Armorica's southern boundary extended to the
Pyrenees. Taking into account the Gaulish origin of the name, that is perfectly correct and logical, as Aremorica is not a country name but a word that describes a type of geographical region, one that is by the sea. Pliny lists the following
Celtic tribes as living in the area: the
Aedui and
Carnuteni as having treaties with
Rome; the
Meldi and
Secusiani as having some measure of independence; and the
Boii,
Senones,
Aulerci (both the
Eburovices and
Cenomani), the
Parisii,
Tricasses,
Andicavi,
Viducasses,
Bodiocasses,
Veneti,
Coriosvelites,
Diablinti,
Rhedones,
Turones, and the
Atseui. Trade between Armorica and Britain, described by
Diodorus Siculus and implied by Pliny, was long-established. Because, even after the campaign of
Publius Crassus in 56 BC, continued resistance to Roman rule in Armorica was still being supported by Celtic aristocrats in
Britain and
Julius Caesar led two invasions of Britain, in 55 BC, and again in 54 BC, in response. Some hint of the complicated cultural web that bound Armorica and
the Britanniae (the "Britains" of Pliny) is given by Caesar when he describes
Diviciacus of the
Suessiones as "the most powerful ruler in the whole of Gaul, who had control not only over a large area of this region but also of Britain". Archaeological sites along the south coast of England, notably at
Hengistbury Head, show connections with Armorica as far east as the
Solent. This 'prehistoric' connection of Cornwall and Brittany set the stage for the link that continued into the medieval era. Still farther East, however, the typical Continental connections of the Britannic coast were with the lower Seine valley instead. made from
billon alloy found in ArmoricaArchaeology has not yet been as enlightening in Iron-Age Armorica as the coinage, which has been surveyed by
Philip de Jersey. Under the
Roman Empire, Armorica was administered as part of the province of
Gallia Lugdunensis, which had its capital in
Lugdunum, (modern day
Lyon). When the
Roman provinces were reorganized in the 4th century, Armorica (
Tractus Armoricanus et Nervicanus) was placed under the second and third divisions of Lugdunensis. After the legions retreated from Britannia (407 AD) the local elite there expelled the civilian magistrates in the following year; Armorica too rebelled in the 430s and again in the 440s, throwing out the ruling officials, as the Romano-Britons had done. At the
Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 a Roman coalition led by General
Flavius Aetius and the Visigothic King
Theodoric I clashed violently with the Hunnic alliance commanded by King
Attila the Hun.
Jordanes lists Aëtius' allies as including Armoricans and other Celtic or German tribes (Getica 36.191). The "Armorican" peninsula came to be settled with
Britons from Britain during the poorly documented period of the 5th–7th centuries. Even in distant Byzantium
Procopius heard tales of migrations to the Frankish mainland from the island, largely legendary for him, of
Brittia. These settlers, whether refugees or not, made the presence felt of their coherent groups in the naming of the westernmost, Atlantic-facing provinces of Armorica,
Cornouaille ("
Cornwall") and
Domnonea ("
Devon"). These settlements are associated with leaders like Saints
Samson of Dol and
Pol Aurelian, among the "founder saints" of Brittany. The linguistic origins of
Breton are clear: it is a
Brythonic language descended from the
Celtic British language, like
Welsh and
Cornish one of the
Insular Celtic languages, brought by these migrating Britons. Still, questions of the relations between the Celtic
cultures of Britain—
Cornish and
Welsh—and Celtic
Breton are far from settled. Martin Henig (2003) suggests that in Armorica as in
sub-Roman Britain: There was a fair amount of creation of identity in the
migration period. We know that the mixed, but largely British and Frankish population of Kent repackaged themselves as '
Jutes', and the largely British populations in the lands east of Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall) seem to have ended up as 'West Saxons'. In western Armorica, the small élite which managed to impose an identity on the population happened to be British rather than 'Gallo-Roman' in origin, so they became Bretons. The process may have been essentially the same." According to
C. E. V. Nixon, the collapse of Roman power and the depredations of the
Visigoths led Armorica to act "like a magnet to peasants,
coloni, slaves and the hard-pressed" who deserted other Roman territories, further weakening them.
Vikings settled in the
Cotentin peninsula and the lower Seine around
Rouen in the ninth and early tenth centuries and, as these regions came to be known as
Normandy, the name
Armorica fell out of use in the area. With western Armorica having already evolved into
Brittany, the east was recast from a
Frankish viewpoint as the
Breton March under a Frankish
margrave. ==In popular culture==