Steve Phillips: Insights and Information
The SAMNITAE and LUCANI who at one time dwelt in southern Italy alongside the Brutti were descended from the tribe of Shimon (AV Simeon). (NB: Both Pliny and Strabo inform us that the Lucani were a breakaway faction of Samnitae.) These tribes became:
• The Lucensi of Spain and ultimately the Luceni of Ireland. (For the latter identification, see William Camden.) These Lucensi whilst in Spain were closely allied to the Numantians. The Numantians who migrated to Ireland became the Nagnetae who settled alongside the Luceni in Connaught in Ireland.
• The Leuki who settled alongside the Nemetes (a variant spelling of Namnetes) in north eastern France on the border with Germany.
• The Samnetae and Cenomani of Brittany who settled alongside the Namnetae. These Namnetae are a breakaway faction of the Numantians of Spain. These Namnetae were also called Nannetes (compare Nagnetae of Ireland, the name Nagnetae being pronounce Nannetae). The city of Nantes in Brittany was named after these inhabitants.
• The Cenimagni of Britain who went on to become the Iceni of Anglia, the latter being called Simeni by Ptolemy. (NB: William Camden recognised that all three of these names belonged to the same people.) Holinshed's Chronicles called these Iceni Samnothes providing us with the usual gobbledegook about how the Samnothes were descendants of Yaphet. The Trinobantes (three Novantae or three Nouantes) were also Namnetae. (Compare this name Nouantes, this being the Greek form of the name, with the name Nannetes, the people who built the city of Nantes.)
I would point out that the name Iceni is a variant spelling of the name Yachin, this being the fourth born son of Shimon. (Gen. 46:10.) For Luceni in its various forms read L'Yachini.
Should you want to know more (including the various sources of the above information), my work entitled The Forgotten Tribe of Naphtali and the Phoenicians explains all of this in more detail and is available both from my website and from the academia website.
Kind regards,
Steve Phillips