{{Short description|Ancient people of northeastern Europe}} {{about|ancient people of Europe|the Indian pudding|Kheer|the Welsh town called Y Fenni|Abergavenny|other uses|Fenny (disambiguation)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}} [[File:Roman Empire 125.png|thumb|right|300px|Map of the Roman Empire and surrounding peoples in AD 125. The map shows two possible locations of the Fenni, based on possible readings of Tacitus (Livonia) and Ptolemy (upper Vistula river). Another location given by Ptolemy, in northern Scandinavia, is not shown as the map does not cover that region]] The '''Fenni''' were an ancient people of northeastern Europe, first described by Publius Cornelius Tacitus in ''Germania'' in 98 CE.
== Ancient accounts ==
The Fenni are mentioned in a short reference in Tacitus' ''Germania'': ''"The Venedi overrun in their predatory excursions all the woody and mountainous tracts between the Peucini and the Fenni"''.<ref name="Tacitus G.46">Tacitus G.46</ref><ref>Mattingly (1970)</ref> The Greco-Roman geographer Ptolemy, who produced his ''Geographia'' in ca. 150 CE, mentions a people called the ''Phinnoi'' (Φιννοι), generally believed to be synonymous with the Fenni.{{cn|date=December 2025}} He locates them in two different areas: a northern group in northern ''Scandia'' (Scandinavia), then believed to be an island; and a southern group, apparently dwelling to the East of the upper Vistula river (SE Poland).<ref>Ptolemy II.11 and III.5</ref> It remains unclear what was the relationship between the two groups.
The next ancient mention of the Fenni/Finni is in the ''Getica'' of 6th-century chronicler Jordanes. In his description of the island of ''Scandza'' (Scandinavia), he mentions three groups with names similar to Ptolemy's Phinnoi, the ''Screrefennae'', ''Finnaithae'' and ''mitissimi Finni'' ("softest Finns").<ref>Jordanes G.III</ref> The Screrefennae is believed to mean the "skiing Finns" and are generally identified with Ptolemy's northern Phinnoi and today's Finns.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Olaus Magnus |author-link=Olaus Magnus |title=Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus |chapter=The Description of Scricfinnia |chapter-url=http://www.wildsnow.com/articles/olaus/magnus.htm |orig-year=1555 |location=Rome |year=1658 <!--(English translation)--> |access-date=6 March 2009 |archive-date=18 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718051647/http://www.wildsnow.com/articles/olaus/magnus.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{non-primary source needed|date=December 2025}} The Finnaithae have been identified with the Finnveden of southern Sweden.{{cn|date=February 2025}} It is unclear who the ''mitissimi Finni'' was.
== Ethno-linguistic affiliation ==
Tacitus was unsure whether to classify the Fenni as Germanic or Sarmatian.<ref name="Tacitus G.46"/> The vagueness of his account has left the identification of the Fenni open to a variety of theories. It has been suggested that the Romans may have used ''Fenni'' as a generic name, to denote the various non-Germanic (i.e. Balto-Slavic and Finno-Ugric) tribes of north-eastern Europe.<ref name="bosi">R. Bosi, ''The Lapps'' (1960) pp44-7</ref> Against this argument is the fact that Tacitus distinguishes the Fenni from other probably non-Germanic peoples of the region, such as the Aestii and the Veneti.<ref>Tacitus G.45-6</ref>{{non-primary source needed|date=February 2025}}
It has also been suggested that Tacitus' Fenni could be the ancestors of the modern Finnish people.<ref>Anderson (1958) 217</ref><ref>Pirinen 9</ref> Juha Pentikäinen writes that Tacitus may well have been describing the Sámi or the proto-Finns when referring to the Fenni, noting some archeologists have identified these people as indigenous to Fennoscandia.<ref name="juha">Juha Pentikäinen, ''Kalevala Mythology'', Indiana University Press, 1999, p226</ref> The context of Fenni has also included the Finnic Estonians throughout different interpretations.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AjIntLsWsMoC&dq=estonia+fenni+tacitus&pg=PA19|title=Estonia|isbn=9780761409519|last1=Spilling|first1=Michael|year=1999|publisher=Marshall Cavendish }}</ref> Nevertheless, according to some linguists, certain linguistic evidence may be interpreted supporting the idea of an archaic Indo-European dialect and unknown Paleo-European languages existing in north-eastern Baltic Sea region before the spread of Finno-Ugric languages like Proto-Sámi and Proto-Finnic in the early Bronze Age around 1800 BCE. However, in Tacitus's time (1st century CE) Finno-Ugric languages (Proto-Sámi and Proto-Finnic) were the main languages in northern Fennoscandia.<ref>Mikko Heikkilä: Bidrag till Fennoskandiens språkliga Förhistoria i tid och rum. University of Helsinki. 2014. tps://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/135714/bidragti.pdf - Abstract in English pp. 7-8</ref><ref>Ante Aikio 2006: [http://www.sgr.fi/susa/91/aikio.pdf On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory]</ref>
Another theory is that Tacitus' Fenni and Ptolemy's northern Phinnoi were the same people and constituted the original Sámi people of northern Fennoscandia, making Tacitus' description the first historical record of them, and the mention of two different "Phinnoi" groups may suggest that there was already a division between Finns and Sámi.<ref>Tägil (1995) 118</ref><ref>Kinsten (2000)</ref><ref>Doug Simms, The University of Texas, [http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/dieda/hist/early.htm ''The Early Period of Sámi History, from the Beginnings to the 16th Century'']</ref> But while this may seem a plausible identification for the Phinnoi of northern Scandinavia, it is dubious for Tacitus' Fenni.{{sfn|Whitaker|1980}} Tacitus' Fenni (and Ptolemy's southern Phinnoi) were clearly based in continental Europe, not in the Scandinavian peninsula, and were thus outside the modern range of the Sámi.{{Citation needed|reason=picture = LocationSapmi.png|date=January 2016}} Against this, there is some archaeological evidence that the Sámi range may have been wider in antiquity.<ref name="bosi"/><ref>Hansen & Olsen (2004)</ref> Sámi place names are found as far as Southern Finland and Karelia<ref>Ante Aikio 2007: The study of Saami substrate toponyms in Finland. Onomastica Uralica. http://mnytud.arts.klte.hu/onomural/kotetek/ou4/08aikio.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111214009/http://mnytud.arts.klte.hu/onomural/kotetek/ou4/08aikio.pdf |date=11 November 2020 }}</ref>
The uncertainties have led some scholars to conclude that Tacitus' Fenni is a meaningless label, impossible to ascribe to any particular region or ethnic group.{{sfn|Whitaker|1980}} But Tacitus appears to relate the Fenni geographically to the Peucini(Bastarnae) and the Venedi, albeit imprecisely, stating that the latter habitually raided the "forests and mountains" between the other two. He also gives a relatively detailed description of the Fenni's lifestyle.<ref name="Tacitus G.46"/>{{non-primary source needed|date=February 2025}}
== Material culture ==
''Fenni'' seems to have been a form of the proto-Germanic word ''*fanþian-'', denoting "wanderers" or "hunting folk",<ref>Svensk Etymologisk Ordbok (online)</ref> although Vladimir Orel viewed its etymology as unclear and listed a couple of alternative proposals (i.e. a derivation from Proto-Celtic *þenn- "hill").<ref>{{Cite book |author=Vladimir E. Orel |author-link=Vladimir Orel |title=A Handbook of Germanic Etymology |year=2003 |url=https://archive.org/details/Orel-AHandbookOfGermanicEtymology/page/n141/mode/2up }}</ref> Tacitus describes the Fenni as follows:<ref name="Tacitus G.46"/>
<blockquote>In wonderful savageness live the nation of the Fenni, and in beastly poverty, destitute of arms, of horses, and of homes; their food, the common herbs; their apparel, skins; their bed, the earth; their only hope in their arrows, which for want of iron they point with bones. Their common support they have from the chase, women as well as men; for with these the former wander up and down, and crave a portion of the prey. Nor other shelter have they even for their babes, against the violence of tempests and ravening beasts, than to cover them with the branches of trees twisted together; this a reception for the old men, and hither resort the young. Such a condition they judge happier than the painful occupation of cultivating the ground, than the labour of rearing houses than the agitations of hope and fear attending the defense of their own property or the seizing that of others. Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.</blockquote>
This description is of a lifestyle different than that of the medieval Sámi, who were pastoralists living off herds of reindeer and inhabiting tents of deer hide. But the archaeological evidence suggests that the proto-Sámi and Proto-Finns had a lifestyle more akin to Tacitus' description.<ref name="juha"/>
==See also== * Finn (ethnonym) * Finnic * Sitones * Finningia
== Citations == {{Reflist|25em}}
== References ==
=== Ancient ===
* Jordanes ''Getica'' (ca. 550 CE) * Ptolemy ''Geographia'' (ca. 150 CE) * Tacitus ''Germania'' (ca. 100 CE)
=== Modern === * Anderson, J.G.D. (1958) Textual note to Tacitus' ''Germania'' * Bosi, Roberto (1960): ''The Lapps'' * Hansen, L.I. & Olsen, B. (2004): ''Samenes Historie fram til 1750'' * Kinsten, Silje Bergum (2000): [https://web.archive.org/web/20080110232542/http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/nost202/norwaysami.htm "The Northern Sami People"] (The Norway Post, 19 August 2000) * Pirinen, Kauko ''The settlement of Finland begins'' in Eino Jutikkala (ed.) ''A History of Finland'' (trans. Paul Sjoblom) * Tägil, Sven (1995): [https://books.google.com/books?id=avUTbqyunwUC&pg=PA118&dq=fenni+sami&sig=rSTEKp3zMPE4J_9bajCPJxsFV4g ''Ethnicity and nation building in the Nordic world''], {{ISBN|1-85065-239-2}} *{{cite journal |first=Ian |last=Whitaker |title=Tacitus' ''Fenni'' and Ptolemy's ''Phinnoi'' |journal=The Classical Journal |volume=75 |issue=3 |year=1980 |pages=215–224 |jstor=3297154|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3297154}}
Category:Ancient peoples of Europe Category:Hunter-gatherers of Europe Category:Finno-Ugric peoples