Cenomani (Cisalpine Gaul)

), was an ancient tribe of the Cisalpine Gauls, who occupied the tract north of the Padus (modern Po River), between the Insubres on the west and the Veneti on the east.

Both Polybius and Livy expressly mention them among the tribes of Gauls which had crossed the Alps within historical memory, and had expelled the Etruscans from the territory in which they established themselves and subsequently continued to occupy.

It is remarkable that they are almost uniformly described in historical documents as being friendly to the Romans, and as refusing to take part with their kindred tribes against Rome.

Even when Hannibal invaded Cisalpine Gaul, they continued to be faithful to the Romans, and even furnished them with a body of auxiliaries, who fought with them at the Battle of the Trebia.

After the Second Punic War, however, they took part in the revolt of the Gauls under Hamilcar (200 BC), and a few years later joined their arms with those of the Insubres, but even then the defection seems to have been only partial: after their defeat by the consul Gaius Cornelius Cethegus (197 BC), they quickly submitted to them and continued to be faithful allies of the Romans.

Strabo omits all mention of them in the geographical description of Gallia Cisalpina, and assigns their cities to the Insubres.

Pliny assigns Cremona and Brixia to them, but Ptolemy attributes a much wider extent to them, writing that their territory comprised not only Bergamum (modern Bergamo) and Mantua, but also Tridentum, which was certainly a Rhaetian city.

32), appears to describe the river Clusius (modern Chiese) as separating them from the Insubres, but this is probably a mistake.

The boundaries attributed to them above (the Addua on the west, the Athesis on the east, and the Padus on the south) may be regarded as approximately correct.

The Alpine tribes of the Camunni and the Triumpilini, which bordered them to their north, are described by Pliny as consisting of members of the Euganean race, and therefore not connected nationally with the Cenomani—-though in his time they were at a minimum united with them for administrative purposes.