Sitones

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Sitones were a people living somewhere in Northern Europe in the 1st century CE. They are only mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in 97 CE in Germania. Tacitus considers them as a Germanic people similar to Swedes:

"Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage."^[1]

Speculations on Sitones' background are numerous. According to one theory, the name is a partial misunderstanding of Sigtuna, one of the central locations in the Swedish kingdom, that is known to have had a Latin spelling "Situne" much later.^[2] Related to this may be a memory of a period in which the Swedes were ruled by a certain queen as described in the Disas saga.^{[citation needed]}

Another speculative hypothesis is that the Sitones were living in Western Finland and were Germanic settlers or actually a Finnic group; sometimes they have been seen as the early inhabitants of ancient Kvenland.^[3]

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