Sitones were a people living somewhere in Northern Europe in the 1st century CE. They are only mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in Germania. Tacitus considers them as a Germanic people similar to Suiones who later evolved into Swedes:
- "Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage."[1]
Speculations on Sitones' background are numerous. According to one theory, the name is a partial misunderstanding of Sigtuna, one of the central locations in the Swedish kingdom, that is known to have had a Latin spelling "Situne" much later.[2] Related to this may be a memory of a period in which the Swedes were ruled by a certain queen as described in the Disas saga. Another speculative hypothesis is that the Sitones were living in Western Finland and were Germanic settlers or actually a Finnic group; sometimes they have been seen as the early inhabitants of ancient Kvenland.[3]
References
- ^ Tacitus' Germania. Translation in English.
- ^ Svenskt Diplomatorium I nr 852. Originalbrev. Pope Alexander III's address to king Knut Eriksson and Jarl Birger Brosa in 1170s.
- ^ Kyösti Julku has stated in his publication Kvenland - Kainuunmaa (1986) that "there is no indistinctness whatsoever about the geographical location of Sitones" (page 51) and places them to Finland as Kven ancestors.
