Curiosolitae

Map of the Gallic people of modern Britanny :

  Osismii

  Veneti

  Coriosolites

  Redones

  Namnetes

Coins of the Curiosolitae, 5th-1st century BCE.

The Curiosolites or Curiosolitae were a people in the region now called Brittany, in Celtica, who are mentioned by Julius Caesar several times.^[1]

The name only occurs in the accusative form; as there are variations in the manuscripts, the nominative is uncertain. They are mentioned by Caesar^[2] with the Veneti, Unelli, Osismi, and others that Caesar calls maritimae civitates, "maritime cities", and border on the Atlantic Ocean. In another place^[3] he describes the position of the Curiosolitae on the ocean in the same terms, and includes them among the Armoric states, a name equivalent to maritimae. The name occurs in Pliny (iv. 18) in the form "Cariosvelites"; and he mentions them with the Unelli, Diablindi, and Rhedones. The Curiosolitae are not mentioned by Ptolemy. No city of these people is mentioned, and the Itineraries give no roads in this part of Brittany. Accordingly, we can only conjecture their position, which is determined with some probability to be the diocese of St. Malo, the only place that remains for them after fixing the position of the other Armoric nations. The name seems to be preserved in Corseul, a village between Dinan and Lamballe, where there are the remains of an old Roman town. We may conclude that, after the fashion of Gallic names, Corseul represents the capital of the Curiosolitae. Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville supposes that on the coast they extended west to the neighborhood of St. Brieuc, where a place called Finiac denotes the boundary of an ancient territory, as the name Fines or Fins denotes in other parts of Gallia. The neighbors of the Curiosolitae on the east were the Rhedones, and on the south the Veneti. On the west were the Osismi or Osismii, who occupied the extremity of the peninsula of Brittany. But Charles Athanase Walckenaer places, between the Osismi and the Curiosolitae, the Biducasii of Ptolemy, in the diocese of St. Bidué or St. Brieuc; whom he distinguishes from the Viducasses.^[4]

Notes

1. Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico ii. 34, iii. 7, 11, vii. 75.
2. Caesar, B. G. ii. 34.
3. Caesar, B. G. vii. 75.
4. D'Anville, Notice, &c.; Walckenaer, Géographie ancienne, historique et comparée des Gaules, vol. i. p. 381.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.