Cenomani  The Cenomani or Aulerci Cenomani were a Celtic people, a branch of the Aulerci in Gallia Celtica, whose territory corresponded generally to Maine in the modern "départment" of Sarthe, west of the Carnutes between the Seine and the Loire. Their chief town was "Vindinum" or "Suindinum" (corrupted into 'Subdinnum'), afterwards "Civitas Cenomanorum" (whence Le Mans, and much later the Cenomanian geological age) and later "Cenomani" as in the Notitia Dignitatum, the original name of the town, as usual in the case of Gallic cities, being replaced by that of the people. According to Caesar ("Bell. Gall." vii.75.3), they assisted Vercingetorix in the great rising (52 BC) with a force of 5000 men. Under Augustus they formed a "civitas stipendiaria" (Roman tributary town) of Gallia Lugdunensis, and in the 4th century part of "Gallia Lugdunensis III". They are mentioned as "Aulercos" and "Aulercis, Cenomanis totidem" "[all the same]" by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), as "Aulerci ... Cenomani" by Pliny (1st c. AD), as "Au̓lírkioioi̔ oi̔ Kenománnoi" (Αὐλίρκιοιοἱ οἱ Κενομάννοι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD), and as "Ceromannos" in the "Notitia Dignitatum" (5th c. AD). The meaning of the name "Cenomani" is uncertain. The prefix stems from Gaulish "ceno-", which could have meant 'far, long', and the second element may derive from "manos" ('good') or from "*meih₁"- ('to go'). Pierre-Yves Lambert has interpreted "Aulerci" as 'far from their track', stemming from the prefix "au-" ('out of, from') attached to the Gaulish root "lergo-" ('trace'), ultimately from Proto-Celtic "*lorgo-" ('trace'; compare with Middle Irish "lorg", Old Breton "lerg").