Oestriminis

In the Latin poetry Avienus, Oestreminis was a name given to the territory of what is today modern Ushant^[1]^[2], comparable to Finis terrae, the "end of the earth" from a Mediterranean perspective. Its inhabitants were named Oestrimni or Osismii from their location.

In Ora Maritima ("Seacoasts"), a poem inspired by a much earlier Greek mariners' periplus, Rufus Avienius Festus, Roman poet of the fourth century CE known for his pieces on geographical subjects, records that Oestriminis was peopled by the Oestrimni, a people who had lived there for a long time, and had to run away from their native lands after an invasion of serpents. His fanciful account has no archeological or historical application, but the poetical name has sometimes been ambitiously applied to popularized accounts of the Paleolithic inhabitants of Atlantic Iberia.

The expulsion of the Oestrimni, from Ora Maritima:

Post illa rursum quae supra fati sumus,

magnus patescit aequoris fusi sinus

Ophiussam ad usque. rursum ab huius litore

internum ad aequor, qua mare insinuare se

dixi ante terris, quodque Sardum nuncupant,

septem dierum tenditur pediti via.

Ophiussa porro tanta panditur latus

quantam iacere Pelopis audis insulam

Graiorum in agro. haec dicta primo Oestrymnis est

locos et arva Oestrymnicis habitantibus,

post multa serpens effugavit incolas

vacuamque glaebam nominis fecit sui.

Back after the places we spoke of above,

there opens a great bay filled with water,

all the way to Ophiussa. Back from the shore of this place,

to the inland water, through which I said before that the sea insinuates itself

across the land, and which they call Sardum,

the journey lasts for seven days on foot.

Ophiusa extends its side, being as large

as you hear the Island of Pelops

lying in the territory of the Greeks is. This land was originally called Oestrymnis

by those who inhabited the Oestrymnian countryside and region,

much later the serpent chased away the inhabitants

and gave the now empty land its name.^[3]

The "serpent people" of the semi-mythical Ophiussa in the far west are noted in ancient Greek sources.

References

^ Roller, Duane W. (2022). Three ancient geographical treatises in translation: Hanno, the King Nikomedes Periplous, and Avienus. Routledge classical translations. London New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 140–1. ISBN 978-1-000-46166-4.
^ Avienus, Rufius Festus; Avienus, Rufius Festus (1977). Murphy, John Paul (ed.). Ora maritima: or description of the seacoast (from Brittany round to Massilia). Chicago: Ares Publ. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-89005-175-7.
^ The point being that ὄφις (ophis) means "snake" in Greek.

External links

Ora Maritima (in Latin)
Culto a la serpiente en el mundo Antiguo Serpent cult in the Ancient Word (in Spanish)
Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)

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[1] Roller, Duane W. (2022). Three ancient geographical treatises in translation: Hanno, the King Nikomedes Periplous, and Avienus. Routledge classical translations. London New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 140–1. ISBN 978-1-000-46166-4.

[2] Avienus, Rufius Festus; Avienus, Rufius Festus (1977). Murphy, John Paul (ed.). Ora maritima: or description of the seacoast (from Brittany round to Massilia). Chicago: Ares Publ. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-89005-175-7.

[3] The point being that ὄφις (ophis) means "snake" in Greek.

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See also

References

External links