Armorica

Armorica during the Roman Empire. Sena and Loire are highlighted in red

Armorica ( Aremorica ; Lat. Armorica , Aremorica ) is a historical region in the north-west of present-day France . Often this name is also used for Brittany . Armorica existed in antiquity and was considered as part of Gaul , located on its Atlantic coast, between the rivers Seine and Loire , sometimes - and Garonne .

The toponym “Armorica” comes from the Gallic phrase “ are mori ” (“at sea”) and the suffix -ika , used for geographical designations. Cf .: Bret. Armor “Armor (coastal territories of Brittany)”, ar mor “sea”; wall. ar y môr "(ashore) by the sea"; lat ōra maritima "seaside".

Initially, the term was interpreted much broader than now: it included present-day Normandy and even the entire Atlantic coast of modern France.

Pliny the Elder claims that Armorica is the former name of Aquitaine , and thus its southern border runs along the Pyrenees . He also lists the Celtic tribes living in Armorica. Two of them, eduys and carnenes , had concluded an alliance treaty with Rome at the time of the creation of his “ Natural History, ” the others were relatively independent ^[1] . "Communities living off the coast of the Ocean under the general name Aremorian", lists and Julius Caesar ^[2] .

Diodorus of Sicily says that Armorica had close trade relations with Britain . According to Strabo , the four points of the “crossing that are usually used when moving from the mainland to the island” of Great Britain were the mouths of the Rhine (and Pas de Calais ), the Seine, the Loire and the Garonne ^[3] .

In honor of Armorica, the asteroid (774) Armor , discovered in 1913 by the French astronomer Charles le Morvan, who was originally from this region, was named.