Tacitus' "Fenni" and Ptolemy's "Phinnoi"

Tacitus' "Fenni" and Ptolemy's "Phinnoi"Author(s): Ian WhitakerSource: The Classical Journal, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Feb. - Mar., 1980), pp. 215-224Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and SouthStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297154 .

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TACITUS' FENNI AND PTOLEMY'S PHINNOI

In recent years two of the popular survey volumes' which deal with the Lapps (Saimi) have both referred to Tacitus' description of the Fenni and accepted the attribution of these people as ancestors of the Lapps.2 Such an ascription seems to me questionable, and it is perhaps time that the problem is again surveyed by a student of the northern peoples,3 since considerable new work on Tacitus by classical scholars is available, and much new archaeological discussion is to hand. At the same time it is also convenient to examine the much less familiar mention of the Phinnoi by Ptolemy, although this throws but scant light on the question.

In general it may be said that this type of problem requires cross-disciplinary analysis in which five separate approaches must be combined: anthropological, archaeological, linguistic, historical and literary. However, in this given instance the contribution of these five disciplines is unequal. When it is the first mention of a particular ethnic group there can be no anterior history, and in the case of the FennilPhinnoi the next literary references are from the very end of

1Bj6rn Collinder, The Lapps (Princeton 1949) 205; Ornulv Vorren and Ernst Manker, Lapp Life and Customs (London 1962) 12. It should however be noted that Collinder raises an element of doubt in his ascription: "It is much more probable that Tacitus speaks of the Lapps."

2The preferred term for these people, 'Sami' or 'Saami', has not yet received wide currency in English, so that I have in this essay retained the more familiar 'Lapps', albeit with hesitation.

3In general Tacitus and Ptolemy have not been as widely discussed by scholars of the north as have the later writers from the end of the classical period. I might perhaps mention here the following who have accepted the Lappish identity of the Fenni: T.E. Karsten, Die Germanen: eine Einflihrung in die Geschichte ihrer Sprache und Kultur (Grundriss der germanischen Philologie No. 9) (Berlin 1928) 146; J. Svennung, "Jordanes' beskrivning av on Scandia", Fornviinnen 59 (1964) 11; Elias Wessen, "Nordiska folkstammar och folknamn", Fornviinnen 64 (1969) 33 (using philological evidence). The Lappish attribution is, on the other hand, denied in an important essay by Wojciech Ketrzyfiski, "Klaudyusza Ptolemeusza Germania wielka i Sarmacya nadwislanska" , Rozprowy Akademii Umiejetnosci: Wydzial Historyczno-filozoficzny Series 2 Vol 16 No. 3 (1902) especially 188-9, as also by K. Ahlenius, "Die ailteste geographische Kenntnis von Skandinavien", Eranos 3 (1898-99) 38. Giosta Langenfelt, "Palens et heros dans le (Widsith)", Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund: Arsbok (1935) 153n. suggests that the Fenni are probably Finns, whilst J.G.D. Anderson, in a textual note to Cornelii Taciti De origine et situ Germanorum (Oxford 1958) 217 equates them with ancestors of the present-day inhabitants of Finland, who at the time, from the context of the description, were dwelling east of the Baltic as neighbours of the Aestii. Another editor, I. Forni, points in Taciti, De origine et situ Germanorum (Flos Latinitatis) (Rome 1964) 183n. to the inhabitants of northern Lithuania and Estonia. Fridtjof Nansen reviewed the problem in his splendid study of early northern topography, In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times (ed. Arthur G. Chater) (London 1911) 113, but says that whether the Fenni were Lapps, Kvaens, or some other race, cannot be determined. Kauko Pirinen in his chapter "The settlement of Finland begins" in Eino Jutikkala, A History of Finland (trans. Paul Sj6blom) 9, says that the description fits both the Lapps and the Stone Age inhabitants of Finland, but Rudolf Much, Die Germania des Tacitus (Germanische Bibliothek Section 1, Series 5, Vol. 3) (Heidelberg 1937) 421 denies that they were Finns.

215



216 IAN WHITAKER

the classical world (Jordanes, Procopius, Paulus diaconus4 and perhaps the Old English poem known as the Wids3) so that the lapse of several hundred years leaves an all too long hiatus. The evidence from onomastics would be very valuable if, again, there were not the problem that we are dealing with a single ethnic group in a given spatial frame, so that there can be no question of contemporary loans from neighbours. We are thus compelled to fall back on the archaeological evidence, to which, however, we may add a critical literary analysis of the sources in question. Ideally we might examine Tacitus and Ptolemy in respect of a different ethnic group about whose early history rather more is known, so that their comparative reliability can be assessed. Regretfully, such a comparison falls outside my present capacity. Mattingly does however say: "To the question whether the Germania is reliable we can on the whole give an affirmative answer."5

We shall first look carefully at the section which deals with the Fenni, attempting to itemise the cultural characteristics attributed to these people. Then we shall survey the present state of our archaeological knowledge in an endeavour to see what contradictions might exist between the literary and the archaeological record. Finally we will briefly examine the evidence from Ptolemy, which, however, will not lend itself to any detailed presentation.

Let us examine the Germania6 in general, as well as the relevant section on the Fenni (Chapter 46). In the words of Mattingly: "The Germania is, as it professes to be, a study of the character, customs and geography of a people."7 This people is, of course, the Germani. One of the foremost scholars of Tacitus, Syme, suggesting that it is derived almost entirely from written sources,8 says: "Faithfully following his source, he confines his efforts to sharpening and embellishing the style, with a few epigrams added and a few details to bring the treatise up to date."9 Of the Fenni, Tacitus writes:

The Fenni are astonishingly savage and disgustingly poor. They have no proper weapons, no horses, no homes. They eat wild herbs, dress in skins, and sleep on the ground. Their only hope of getting better fare lies in their arrows, which, for lack of iron, they tip with bone. The women support themselves by hunting, exactly like the men; they accompany them everywhere and insist on taking their share in bringing down the game. The only way they have of protecting their infants against wild beasts or bad weather is to hide them under a makeshift covering of interlaced branches. Such is the shelter to which the young folk come back and in which the old must lie. Yet they count their lot happier than that of others who groan over field labour, sweat over house-building, or hazard their own and other men's fortunes in the hope of profit and the

4I have reviewed the late classical accounts in Ian Whitaker, "Late Classical and early Mediaeval accounts of the Lapps (Sami)," Classica et Mediaevalia (forthcoming).

5Harold Mattingly, "Introduction" to Tacitus: The Agricola and the Germania (Penguin Classics) (Harmondsworth 1970) 27.

6The Germania was finished probably in A.D. 98. 7 Ibid. 25. 8Ronald Syme, Tacitus Vol. 1 (Oxford 1958) 46, 127. "Ibid. 128.



TACITUS' FENNI AND PTOLEMY'S PHINNO! 217

fear of loss. Unafraid of anything that man or god can do to them, they have reached a state that few human beings can attain: for these men are so well content that they do not even need to pray for anything."'

It should be noted that this brief section appears at the very end of the Germania," and it has been suggested that the inclusion of these three paragraphs serves to provide a literary contrast with the Germans, compared with whom the Fenni seem half-animals.'2 It is clearly an account based on one or more eyewitnesses,'3 but instead of his usual literary sources Tacitus had to rely on such informants as traders,'4 who would perhaps have visited these tracts to obtain furs from the inhabitants. It is significant that some of the students of Tacitus who are not concerned with minute ethnographic description have dismissed this section as fabulosa,'5 although one such editor also adds:

The description of the Fenni, despite its rhetorical traits, is not an imaginary idealisation of a primitive people. The style expresses the writer's feeling of marvel at the existence of such extreme barbarism. The facts were probably drawn from the report of a traveller who had spent some time in the amber country of the Baltic and had gathered information about the tribe .. .'

Another editor'7 detects an important change of style when the section on the Fenni begins-which, if correct, suggests either a different informant, or possibly a different purpose on the part of Tacitus in providing the information which follows. But stylistic matters are intangible, since, as one scholar has suggested: "The Germania was written in the style of oratory rather than in the style of narrative, because that type of style was by tradition considered most suitable for disquisitions on ethnography."'8

Let us, however, now examine seriatim the pieces of information provided by Tacitus. (To facilitate discussion they will be numbered.)

101 follow the translation by Mattingly, Tacitus, op. cit. (Harmondsworth 1970) 141, although that by M. Hutton, Tacitus: Agricola - Germania - Dialogus (Loeb Classical Library) (London 1970) 213-5 is rather more terse. For a technical, almost word by word, commentary on chapter 45 see Rudolf Much, op. cit. 413-24.

"Cf. John H. Wuorinen, A History of Finland (New York 1965) 28. '2Karl Triidinger, Studien zum Geschichte der griechisch-rbimischen Ethnographie (Basel 1918)

169. 13A point made by Karl Schumacher "Anhang I: Verhiiltnis der tatsachenangaben in der

Germania zu den literarischen und archaiologischen zeugnissen" in Wilhelm Reeb (ed.), Tacitus Germania (Leipzig 1930) 132.

'4Eduard Norden, Die germanische Urgeschichte in Tacitus Germania (Leipzig 1920) 442. The Romans were in possession of Baltic amber and doubtless were in commercial contact with this area.

'5Reinhard Hiussler, Tacitus und das historische Bewusstsein (Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswirtschaften New Series) (Heidelberg 1965) 191, cf. 207.

16J.G.C. Anderson, op. cit. n. 3, 219. "loannes Forni in Taciti, op. cit. n. 3, 184. "'T.A. Dorey " 'Agricola' and 'Germania' " in T.A. Dorey (ed.) Tacitus (Studies in Latin

Literature and its Influence) (London 1969) 14.



218 IAN WHITAKER

1. There is a group of migratory people known as Fenni, who live in some poverty.

2. These people lack weapons-presumably not having metal ones as used by the Romans.

3. They also lack horses. 4. They have no houses, but sleep on the ground under the shelter of branches. 5. They eat wild herbs-which may perhaps indicate that they do not cultivate

land. 6. They dress in skins-which may perhaps mean that they have no cloth. 7. They hunt with bone-tipped arrows, since they lack iron. 8. Women also take part in hunting. 9. They have some construction of branches in which infants are hidden.

10. They possibly have no accumulated capital. 11. They seem to be singularly happy in the life they lead. This final point is clearly somewhat rhetorical.

Before we examine the archaeological evidence from northern Scandinavia for this period, let us summarise this information. It clearly refers to a nomadic or transhumant group, lacking permanent houses, whose livelihood is largely derived from the hunting of wild animals (who remain unspecified), for which they use bone-tipped arrows. It is important to note that Tacitus does not mention either reindeer or skis.19 Indeed the former omission led Nansen to say that the Fenni were not likely to be reindeer nomads.20 There is no precise location given for this people21-but the context has led to their location in Scandinavia, which certainly seems the place where they fit. Who uses the name Fenni is also not given.22 The interwoven branches have been seen as referring to tents;23 they might alternatively refer to a prototype of the Lappish cradle, but both identifications on such a slender description seem somewhat incautious. It is clear that at best this information is both sparse and highly generalised.

Perhaps the most important evidence about the earliest inhabitants of northern Scandinavia is to be found in the work of archaeologists. The material they present is both complex and infuriatingly incomplete. Nevertheless some attempt at a summary must be made if we are properly to assess the information provided by Tacitus.

Archaeological theorists concerned with the European Arctic seem to belong to one of two schools: first there is the Circumpolar, originally developed by

19Gudmund Schiitte, Our Forefathers: the Gothonic Nations Vol. 1 (trans. Jean Young) (Cam- bridge 1929) 127; Rudolf Much, op. cit. n. 3, 421.

20Fridtjof Nansen, op. cit. n. 3, 114. 21Gudmund Schiitte, op. cit. n. 19, 127. 22The problem of the name 'Finns' is too complex to be examined here; for a discussion which,

however, lacks total clarity, see Gudmund Schiitte, "Lappiske smaating", Maal og minne (1924) 192-9.

23Fridtjof Nansen, op. cit. n. 3, 114.



TACITUS' FENNI AND PTOLEMY'S PHINNO!

219

Gjessing and promoted in a long series of publications24 suggesting influence across the Arctic from east to west.2" Gjessing saw this circumpolar culture as borne by semi-nomadic groups living in subterranean houses during winter- time and in different types of dwelling during the summer.26 He believes there was a long occupation of northern Scandinavia by the ancestors of the Lapps, although he is not categorical on this point.27 The alternative school looks for cultural influences from the south: that is to say from southern Scandinavia.28

Let us now examine the archaeological record for the period around the beginning of our present era. This is still very sparse. There are, for example, no dated finds from the end of the Bronze Age to after the birth of Christ from Norrland (Sweden),2" and there is in general little Bronze Age material in northern Fennoscandia."3 Such material from this period as we have from northern Sweden shows a significant boundary between the littoral culture, which was characterised by a southern Scandinavian pattern of building burial cairns, and an inland sub-Neolithic culture whose burial practices were less evident.31 There is also an important ecological boundary between a mixed agricultural and hunting economy (to the south) and a pure hunting culture (to the north). The actual boundary between these two ethnic groups-if we equate economic and ethnic differentiation-oscillates, with a maximum (i.e. northerly) position for agriculture around the year 1000 A.D., and a minimum position around the beginning of the Christian era; another maximum had occurred some time before 500 B.C., whilst there was an earlier minimum position for agriculture about 1000 B.C. A still earlier (Neolithic) maximum occurred around 1500 B.C. These maxima are undoubtedly to be correlated with climatic variations, but suggest two cultures living side by side, possibly

24inter alia Gutorm Gjessing, Yngre steinalder i Nord-Norge (Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Series B Vol. 39) (Oslo 1942); Circumpolar Stone Age (Acta Arctica 2) (Kobenhavn 1944); "The circumpolar stone age", Antiquity 26 (1953).

25Povl Simonsen, "The cultural concept in the Arctic Stone Age" in G6sta Berg (ed.), Circumpolar Problems: Habitat, Economy, and Social Relations in the Arctic (Wenner-Gren Center International Symposium Series 21) (Oxford 1973) 168 sees the main direction west-east.

26Gjessing op. cit. n. 24 (1953) 135. 27Gutorn Gjessing, Changing Lapps: a Study in Culture Relations in Northernmost Norway

(Monographs in Social Anthropology 13) (London 1954) 6; this point is also implied in Povl Simonsen op. cit. n. 25, 164.

28E.g. Margareta Bibrnstad, "Norrland in the Younger Iron Age-as Source of Raw Materials and as Market" in Harald Hvarfner (ed.), Hunting and Fishing (Lulea 1965) 75, writing however of a later period; cf. Thorleif Sj6vold, The Iron Age Settlement of Arctic Norway: a Study in the Expansion of European Iron Age Culture within the Arctic Circle Vol. 1 Early Iron Age (Roman and Migration Periods) (Troms0 Museums Skrifter 10 no. 1) (Tromso 1962) 3 writes ". . . the North Norwegian Iron Age must be regarded as an offshoot of the Iron Age of southern Norway.'

29Margareta Biirnstad, op. cit. n. 28, 75. 30Hans Christiansson, "Kring stenildern i Ovre Norrland", Viisterbotten 42 (1961) 132-3; cf.

Gutorm Gjessing, Fra Steinalder til Jernalder i Finnmark: Ethnologiska Problemer (Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Series C vol. 3 No. 3) (Oslo 1935) 6, and Povl Simonsen, Nord- Norges bosetningshistorie i oldtiden (Ottar Nos. 32-33) (Troms0 1962) 11.

31Evert Baudou, "A programme for archaeological and ecological research of prehistoric and historical material from Northern Sweden: II. The cultural concept in the North Swedish Stone Age" in Gosta Berg (ed.), op. cit. 19; Ernest Westerlund, "Okint folk eller lappar?" in Hans Christiansson and Ake Hyenstrand, Nordsvenskforntid (Kungl. Skytteanska Handlingar No. 6) says that the non-cairnm-building people who were driven inland were the ancestors of the Lapps.



220 IAN WHITAKER

in some symbiotic relationship, over quite a long period. During the maxima there would be some isolated farming on the Norwegian coast at least near the latitude 700, but on the Baltic coast this does not occur north of 680.32 It is alternatively possible that we are not dealing with ethnically differentiated groups, but rather with a continuum in which some groups switch to agriculture when the climate allows, and return to hunting in cooler phases.33 Some important sites do not fit into this pattern, however. Disregarding the earlier Komsa stone age culture, which shows no continuity into later periods,34 there is also the long-term occupation of the Norwegian island of Traena, just south of the Arctic Circle, excavated by Gjessing, which continues from 2000 B.C. to the Roman Iron Age. This was largely a seal-hunting culture, and has been declared by its main excavator not to be Lappish.35

The absence of a Bronze Age certainly points to a lack of cultural impulses from the south during that period of European development. The first Iron Age finds in northern Norway are generally late Roman.36 This suggests that even during the Roman period there was little contact with that area, and possibly lends support to the view that Tacitus would have been unlikely to have had any reliable source of information from that part of the European Arctic.

Finally we might mention the Kjelmoy culture which dates from a later period than that with which we are concerned: i.e. 200-800 A.D.37 This is said by Simonsen to have been derived from a preceding Neolithic one,38 and has often been described as Lappish. One feature of this culture is the use of tools made from reindeer antler. If indeed they go back to an earlier period-for which, however, firm evidence is at present lacking-then there would be some reason to say that Lapps had been living in northern Scandinavia during the time of Tacitus. However although some archaeologists state it as a matter of faith that the ancestors of the Lapps have been occupying this territory for millenia, as a

32Carl-Axel Moberg, "On some circumpolar and Arctic problems in north European archeology" in Helge Larsen-(ed.), The Circumpolar Conference in Copenhagen 1958 (Acta Arctica 11) (Kobenhavn 1960) 68; Simonsen attributes this variation to the fact that the Gulf of Bothnia (and the White Sea) freezes, whereas the Norwegian coastal waters do not--see his 1973 article, 164.

331bid. 165-6; however Simonsen does not use the concept 'continuum'. 34Cf. Povl Simonsen, Fortidsminner Nordfor Polarsirkelen (U-bokene 130) (Tromso 1970) 10. 35Gutorn Gjessing, Tren-funnene (Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Series B

Vol. 41) (Oslo 1943); in his 1954 article he says this was not Lappish. 36The earliest find is a bronze brooch from Kvefjord, southern Troms, found by Winther in 1875

and dated to the second century A.D., Thorleif Sjovold, op. cit. 99-100, 216. Inga Serning, Lapska offerplatsfyndfrn njarnalder och medeltid: de svenska lappmarkerna (Acta Lapponica 11) (Stockholm 1956) 97 refers to two graves from Nesseby, Finnmark, dating from the pre-Roman or Roman Iron Age, which she sees as the oldest Lappish material. The earliest grave certainly of Lappish origin in Sweden is fourteenth-century, from Gutheberget, Tiirna parish: Margareta Biornstad, "A programme for archaeological and ecological research of prehistoric and historical material from Northern Sweden: I. Historical background and organization" in Gosta Berg, op. cit. 13.

37Povl Simonsen, "Relations between the Lapps and the Scandinavians in early times--an archaeological survey", Lapps and Norsemen in Olden Times (Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Series A vol. 26) (Oslo 1967) 68. Kjelmoy itself, which is described by its founder O. Solberg, Eisenzeitsfunde aus Ostfinmarken: Lappliindische Studien (Videnskabs-Selskabets Skrifter 2 Historisk-filosofiske Klasse 1909 No. 7) (Christiania 1909), is dated to 300 A.D.

38Povl Simonsen op. cit. (1967) 70.



TACITUS' FENNI AND PTOLEMY'S PHINN01 221

transhumant population, this is not yet verifiable from the archaeological evidence.39 On the other hand it has also been suggested by some archaeologists that at least the woodland reindeer may not have come into Scandinavia until the first century A.D.40 One cannot rule out that they were accompanied by their predators, the ancestors of the Lapps.

Let us return once more to Tacitus. To what extent does the archaeological record confirm or contradict his description? There was a hunting population in northern Scandinavia, the exact boundaries of their territory fluctuating due to climatic conditions. At the time of Tacitus there was a period of cold weather and minimal agriculture. No permanent dwelling sites have been found, and we may presume that these people were transhumant. We may also assume that they used skins, since there is no evidence of trade of any type. There was a tradition of the use of bone-tipped implements. The archaeological record may be said, then, to confirm in some measure, the items derived from Tacitus and numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. (Those statements numbered 1, 8, 9, and I 1 are in any case not verifiable from archaeological materials.) The archaeological evidence certainly does not clash with the information from Tacitus. Equally, however, it must be admitted that this information could just as easily be attributed to other hunting cultures in the Baltic area: southern Sweden, however, seems to be excluded by the known presence there at this time of agriculturalists.

One might perhaps also refer to an important point made by Goodyear in discussing the Germania:

The work shows traces of a curious feature of ancient ethnography, namely the phenomenon of 'transference'. Physical or sociological characteristics which one writer ascribes to a remote people are borrowed by a later writer and transferred to another people altogether, and this may happen many times, until there grows up a stock of commonplaces, descriptive and characterizing traits which may be applied indifferently to any people which is being described.41

It cannot be denied that the highly generalised description of the Fenni may be of this type. What does it tell us which could not be equally said of the Picts or the Estonians or a host of other people on the fringes of the Roman Empire?

Let us now examine the scanty material offered by Ptolemy, whose possible mention of the Lapps is certainly the only one that approaches in time Tacitus' description of the Fenni. However at the outset it must be said that Ptolemaic studies are in an early phase of their development,42 by far the greatest attention

39Cf. Hans Christiansson, op. cit., n. 30, 111, 127. 40lbid. 174-5. 41F.R.D. Goodyear, Tacitus (Greece and Rome: New Surveys in the Classics 4) (Oxford 1970)

9. 42For a bibliography of Ptolemaic studies see William Harris Stahl, Ptolemy's Geography: a

select bibliography (New York 1953). The standard work on Ptolemy is probably Emanuel timek, Velkd Germanie Klaudia Ptolemaia (Spisy Masarykovy University v Brne Filosoficka Fakulta 40, 47, 49) Vols. 2 (1935) 3 (1949) 4 (1953) (Brno). Unfortunately Vol. 2 was not available to me;



222 IAN WHITAKER

being paid to the so-called Ptolemaic maps, all the surviving examples of which are late mediaeval if not Renaissance in their date.43 Of Ptolemy's personal life virtually nothing is known. Even the dates of his birth and death are lacking, although it is accepted that he undertook astronomic observations in Alexandria between 128 and 151 A.D.44 His book, the Geographia, was compiled from surviving fragments by an unknown scholar in Byzantine times.45 Book II through VII of this compilation comprise long lists of localities defined according to his system of longitude and latitude.46 However, because of the long interval of nine centuries between the original work and the surviving version it has been suggested that no precise identification is possible.47

Nevertheless it should be mentioned that one of the groups referred to in most versions of Ptolemy's Geography is the (ivvot (Phinnoi), although the name is regrettably duplicated in both his description of Scandia and that of Sarmatia.48 A number of writers have ascribed the Phinnoi to the Lapps,49 although others have suggested the Finns-i.e. the ancestors of the people who now call themselves Suomalaiset.s5 Schiitte, a major Ptolemaic scholar, in his so-called 'Collective Prototype E' placed the Phinnoi on the southern Baltic coast.51

The duplication of the Phinnoi presents some problems, since the Fenni (or their equivalent names) in some of the later texts from the first millenium, such

the Rerefennae are there mentioned on pages 127, 130. See also Carlos Sanz, La geographia de Ptolemeo: ampliada con los primeros mapas impresos de America (Madrid 1959), which, however, is largely taken up with cartographic questions, as are the majority of studies of Ptolemy.

43The earliest are dated to the latter half of the thirteenth century: Michael C. Andrews, "The study and classification of medieval Mappae Mundi", Archaeologia 2nd Series 25 (1926) 62.

44Gudmund Schiitte, Ptolemy's Maps of Northern Europe: a Reconstruction of the Prototypes (Kobenhavn 1917) 12; see also Franz Boll, "Studien iiber Claudius Ptolemaus: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie und Astrologie", Jahrbiicher fir classische Philologie Supplementary Vol. 21 No. 2 (1894).

45Leo Bagrow, "The origins of Ptolemy's Geographia", Geografiska Annaler 27 (1945) passim esp. 344; the oldest surviving manuscripts are one from the eleventh century and two from the thirteenth-Lauri 0. Tudeer, Studies in the Geography of Ptolemy (Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia 21 No. 4 (1927) 4-6. 51 major manuscripts are described by Paul Schnabel, Text und Karten des Ptolemiius (Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Geographie und Volkerkunde 2) (Leipzig 1939) 5-37. Ptolemy's work received a renewed measure of interest in the later decades of the fifteenth century-cf. George H.T. Kimble, Geography in the Middle Ages (London 1938) 214; from this period dates the edition by Jos. Fischer (ed.), Der "deutsche Ptolemiius" aus dem Ende des XV. Jahrhunderts (um 1490) (Strassburg 1910), which was first printed in Niirnberg circa 1480.

46Lauri O. Tudeer, "On the origin of the maps attached to Ptolemy's Geography", Journal of Hellenistic Studies 37 (1917) 65.

47Leo Bagrow, op. cit. n. 45, 387. 48Gudmund Schiitte, op. cit. n. 19 (1917) 29, 128. 49K. Ahlenius, op. cit. n. 3, 39; J.V. Svensson, "Ptolemaeus redogorelse fir folken pa ion

Skandia", Namn och Bygd 7 (1919) 4. 5SGudmund Schiitte, "A map of Denmark: 1900 years old", Saga-Book of the Viking Society 8

(1913) 75; but it is suggested by Kemp Malone, "Ptolemy's Skandia", American Journal of Philology 45 (1924) 365--but cf. 363-that they were not Lapps.

5SGudmund Schiitte, "Ptolemy's Atlas: a study of the sources", Scottish Geographical Magazine 30 (1914) 73-4. This southern Scandinavian location led Elis Wadstein, "Die nordische Volkernamen bei Ptolemaios", Minneskrift utgiven av Filologiska Samfundet i Gibteborg (Goteborgs Hogskolas Arsskrift 31) (1925) 196n. to accept the Sarmatian group as either Finns or Lapps.



TACITUS' FENNI AND PTOLEMY'S PHINNOI 223

as the Widsit, are also listed twice.52 However Schutte dismisses this as a cartographer's error.53

It might be said that the Ptolemaic reference to the Phinnoi confirms the existence of the people referred to by Tacitus as the Fenni, were there not a possibility that Ptolemy has derived his information from Tacitus."4 Unfortunately not enough work has been done on Ptolemy's material to confirm or deny this authoritatively, but I would point out that Tacitus provided some information about other Scandinavian ethnic groups that was not taken up by Ptolemy. Whilst the chance of a textual connection remains, there is perhaps some reason for confirming the existence of a people in the Fennoscandian area who were known as the Fenni or Phinnoi, although who used this term about whom is rather less certain.55 It is to be hoped that some scholar will take up the study of these possible literary connections.

A study of Ptolemy therefore leads to the further reinforcement of the first statement of Tacitus, with, however, certain reservations about the purity of the source.

We come back to the question whether or not these people were Lapps. It should at once be stated that this cannot be finally answered at this time. The data is at once so generalised that it defies accurate identification, whilst the archaeological evidence suggests the possibility of a number of different groups in the northern Fennoscandian region, any one or none of whom might be the ancestors of the present-day Lapps. Whether there was any cultural unity over a long period of time is certainly still a matter of debate.

Such a finding might be of some minor disappointment to the emerging Saimi nationalist who is seeking to demonstrate the occupation of northern Fennoscandia by his ancestors for millenia. However, I think at the best the evidence must suggest that the case for the FennilPhinnoi as ancestors of the Lapps deserves the Scottish verdict 'Not proven'. On the other hand there is no firm evidence to suggest that they were any other ethnic group, just as there is no precise geographical location to which they can be ascribed. One might close with the somewhat negative comments of the Finnish-American historian Wuorinen:

52The duplication is referred to by Gudmund Schiitte, "Die Quellen der Ptolemiischen Karten von Nordeuropa", Beitriige zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 41 (1916) 43; Wadstein, op. cit. 196n. accepts the Sarmatian group as either Finns or Lapps.

53Gudmund Schiitte, "Ptolemy's Atlas: fourth article", Scottish Geographical Magazine 31 (1915) 374.

4The similarities between Tacitus and Ptolemy are pointed out by Emanuel Simek, op. cit. n. 42, 4 passim, and Wojciech Ketrzyfiski, op. cit. n. 3, 188-9.

55This connection is also accepted by Fridtjof Nansen, op. cit. n. 3, 120; see also Wojciech Ketrzyfiski op. cit. n. 3, 219-30.



224 IAN WHITAKER

Actually, Tacitus devotes three short paragraphs of about one hundred words in all to the Fenni, at the close of his essay. His statement is broadly generalizing, and contains nothing that can be connected with the Finns. The suggestion that the "Fenni" refers to the Lapps has been made by several commentators. The obvious fact is, however, that Tacitus' mention of the "Fenni" must be dismissed as devoid of substance and meaning, for it throws no light whatever upon the Finns or their early history.56

IAN WHITAKER Simon Fraser University

56John Wuorinen, op. cit. n. 11, 28-9. 1 must here acknowledge my indebtedness to the Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge for the facilities offered me as a Visiting Scholar in the fall of 1976, during which this article was researched, as well as to the generous leave policy of my own Institution, Simon Fraser University. I should also mention my two Lappish friends Per-Bertil and Anne Simma, in whose hospitable home in Idivuoma in northernmost Sweden the manuscript was finished. A Norwegian-language earlier version of the paper appeared as lan Whitaker, "Tacitus' fenni og Ptolemeus' phinnoi", Kulturpd karrigjord:

festskrift til Asbjorn Nesheim (By og Bygd 26) (1978) 193-206.



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Tacitus' "Fenni" and Ptolemy's "Phinnoi"