City
Lemuno
Poitiers
Listen to the story
Lemonum was the chief town of the Gaulish tribe of the Pictones, and its name is usually linked with a Celtic word for the elm. In late antiquity the tribe's name took over: the town became Pictavi, and from the frozen form Pictavis came Poitiers, just as the region of Poitou grew out of pagus Pictavus. Four roads met here, and milestones found in the surrounding countryside, one of them dated AD 140, still count the miles to it. The map shows a cramped moment: the figure twenty and the name Fines were squeezed in above a river instead of below it.