"Gaul this side of the Alps" - and may have given the site its Latinized Celtic name: in Gaulish *medio - meant "middle, center" and the name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain", thus *Mediolanon (Latinized as Mediolanum) meant "(settlement) in the midst of the plain."

Mediolanum was important for its location as a hub in the road network of northern Italy. Polybius describes the country