The
Cynetes or
Conii were a one of the
Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, living in today's
Algarve and Low
Alentejo regions of southern
Portugal before the
6th century BCE (in what was to become the southern part of the
Roman province of
Lusitania).
Whether they were Celts or pre-Celtic Iberians has not been established. A third possibility is that they represented a pre-Celtic population who had adopted many elements of Celtic culture (namely from the Celtici of Alentejo), with normal expectations of some intermarriage, and cultural influences from powerful Tartessos to the east of them (in the region Romans would call Hispania Bætica).
Inscriptions in the Tartessian language have been found in the area, in a variety often referred to as Southwest script. The name Conii, found in Strabo, seems to have been identical with the Cynesii, who were mentioned by Herodotus as the westernmost dwellers of Europe and distinguished by him from the Celts[1].
The main city of the country of the Conii was Conistorgis, according to Strabo, who considered the region Celtic[2]. In the local language Conistorgis probably means "City of the Conii". The city was destroyed by the Lusitanians, during the Lusitanian War against Rome, because the Conii had become allied with the Romans during the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (called Hispania by the Romans). Its precise site has not been rediscovered.
