Fenni

• a tribe in the north and northeastern parts of Europe, not of the Germani, called Φίννοι by Ptolemy, probably the Finns, Tac. G. 46; v. Orell. ad h. l.

FENNI a population of the north and northeastern parts of Europe, first mentioned by Tacitus (Germania, 46), as one different from and contrasted to those of Germania. In Ptolemy, the only other author who gives their name, the form is Φίννοι. The extent to which the Fenni coincided with the modern Laps of Lapland, rather than with the Finns of Finland (or vice versâ), is considered under the articles SITONES, SCYTIIIA, and SARMATIA At present the name alone will be noticed. It belongs to the same language with the word Æstyi==Eastmen (q. v.), viz. the German; and, of this, to the Scandinavian branch. Finn is not the name by which either the Finlanders or the Laplanders know themselves. It is the term by which they are known to the Northmen. This helps to verify the statement that the chief sources of the information of the classical writers concerning the Baltic were German.

A savage people, reckoned by Tacitus (Germ. 46) as distinct from the natives of Germania. They probably dwelt in the eastern part of what is now Prussia, and were the same as the modern Finns. Ptolemy calls them Φίννοι.