Colonia Equestris Noiodunum
Colonia Equestris Noiodunum (Nyon), a town in the country of the Helvetii, which the Itineraries place on the road from Geneva to Lacus Lausonius (Lausanne). It is first mentioned by Pliny (4.7), and then by Ptolemy (2.9), who assigns it to the Sequani. Pliny and Ptolemy simply name it Equestris; and so it is named in the Itineraries. On some inscriptions it is called Civ. Equestrium, and Col. Julia Equ.; from which some have concluded that it was founded by C. Julius Caesar. In the Notitia it is called Civ. Equestrium Noiodunum. The name Noiodunum, and the position of Equestris in the Itineraries, determine the site of the place with certainty. The district in which Nyon stands is called Pagus Equestricus in a document of the year 1011; and it is said that the people of the country still call this district Enquestre. (D'Anville, Notice, &c.; Walckenaer, Géographie, &c., des Gaules, vol. ii. p. 316.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.