The Tactics of Riothamus

[Agraes]

As a side note, I would like to add that Armorica is not Brittany. Armorica by the time of the roman conquest, means the various gaulish tribes bordering the Channel sea. In late roman times, this was the region more or less between Loire and Seine, including what will become Brittany.

It seems Brittany don't get its name before the VIth century. Before, it was also known as Letavia, or Letau in Brittonic (still Llydaw in modern welsh), thought it is not clear if the term means the three civitates that were massively settled by the Britons, the whole continent and by extension the Briton settlements there, or only what will become Léon, in the North West of Brittany, once known as pagus Legionensis.

Briton implantation was in no way restricted to later Brittany (and there, Rennes and Nantes regions were not at all settled by Britons, only conquered in the IXth century). Their presence was very important in the Loire valley, and in the whole north of Gaul where a lot of toponyms in Bret- like Bretteville for exemple still testify today of their passage.

Unto the "Riothamus" subject, Im personnaly still convinced by Léon Fleuriot arguments identifying him with Ambrosius Aurelianus.

Here a sum up of his arguments:
- both characters lived in the same period, Riothamus in 469, Ambrosius circa 460-480 AD and were kind of "supreme leaders"
- both were held in great estim by the clerics, Ambrosius beeing called a uir modestus by Gildas and Sidonius speaking about uestri pudoris and uerecundia in his letter to Riothamus
- Ambrosius is also known in the Irish version of the Historia Brittonum as Ambrois ri Frangc e Brethan Letha, king of the Francs and Letavian Britons
- still in the HB Ambrosius is called rex inter omnes reges Britannicae gentis, so he is for Fleuriot the supreme-king, exactly the meaning of Rigotamos

Fleuriot also thought Ambrosius Aurelianus Riothamus helped Syagrius against Childeric, and that the letter Sidonius adressed to Riothamus was written after Déols (Im particulary interested in the exact datation of this letter, the theory beeing deeply based on it), meaning that even after his defeat Riothamus still had great forces.

The Alan connection in Brittany was disregarded by him. The name Alan beeing linked in a way more simpliest way with animals with red fur.