Atecotti
Attested: Ammianus XXVII,VIII,5 Attacotti bellicosa hominum natio
Notitia Dignitatum Atecotti; Atecotti Honoriani seniores and ditto juniores; Atecotti juniores Gallicani
Jerome Atticotorum (Epistolae 69); Atticottos (Adversus Iovinianum 2)
Inscription in Macedonia: MIL DE NUM ATECUTTORUM
Where: A warlike race of men, who ranged widely and caused great devastation, along with Scots and two types of Picts, from AD 364 to 368, according to Ammianus. Cannibals, somewhere in Britain, according to Jerome. Soldiers in the Roman army according to the Notitia and that inscription.
Name Origin: Atta meant ‘father’ in Latin, Greek, and other languages, generally supposed to come from baby talk (Daddy). Cot ‘cottage, house’ probably passed from Finno-Ugric via Germanic into Indo-European languages. The name Attacotti may have been a comment on the social structure of people living in places such as the Western Isles of Scotland, where ancestry and clan affiliation was regarded as very important. See, for example, here about the inheritance patterns of early medieval kings. Jerome wrote that the ‘Atticotti allow their brides to be promiscuous and live together in communes’. Less likely is a Latin versions of Old Irish aithecthúatha, variously translated as ‘vassal communities’, ‘unfree’, ‘rent-payers’, etc, suggested by Rance (2001) as referring to a social, rather than ethnic, category of people, who moved around the Irish Sea, sometimes as raiders, but mainly with the Romans' blessing, including some service in the Roman army.
Notes: Rivet & Smith set out an unconvincing Celtic interpretation as ‘very old ones’, based upon a debatable guess that *Cott- in personal names meant ‘old’. One might as well cite PIE *steg- ‘stake’ to suggest that the Roman army hired pikemen from northern tribes to pioneer the schiltron formation, as illustrated by a famous Pictish stone at Aberlemno.
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Last edited 8 April 2025 To main Menu