Parisi

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Parisi. British tribe and civitas. The Parisi as their name suggests seem to have ancestral links, betrayed in particular by their unusual ‘chariot-burials’, to a Gallic tribe of the same name. Overshadowed by their far more powerful neighbours, the Brigantes, it is possible that they acquiesced in the Roman occupation of their territory, which lay in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The geographer Ptolemy ascribes one town to them, Petuaria (Brough on Humber), and it is from here that an inscription survives which appears to confirm the existence of the civitas. It is likely that Petuaria served as the tribal capital.

Keith Branigan

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