Venta Icenorum

The site today
North Wall

Venta Icenorum (Classical Latin: [ˈwɛnta ɪkeːˈnoːrũː],[1] literally "marketplace of the Iceni")[2] was the civitas[3] or capital of the Iceni tribe, located at modern-day Caistor St Edmund in the English county of Norfolk. The Iceni inhabited the flatlands and marshes of that county and are famous for having revolted against Roman rule under their queen Boudica in the winter of 61 CE.

  1. ^ Probably meaning "central place of the Iceni", cf. Matasović, Ranko, Etymological dictionary of Proto-Celtic, Brill, 2009, p. 413. The old idea that Venta was a Latin term used in Britain for "market town" has long been rejected by all place-name scholars (A. L. F. Rivet & C. Smith, The place-names of Roman Britain, p.262-5; R. Coates, Remarks on 'pre-English' in England: with special reference to *uentā, *ciltā and *cunāco, Journal of the English Place-Name Society 16 (1983-4) 1-7; T. S. Ó Máille Venta, Gwenta, Finn, Guen, Nomina XI (1987), 145-152).
  2. ^ "Caistor Roman Town | Norfolk Archaeological Trust". www.norfarchtrust.org.uk. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
  3. ^ Ptolemy, Geography 2.2