In Latin poetry, Oestreminis ("Extreme / Outer West") - comparable to Finis terrae - was the name for the area of present-day Portugal. Its inhabitants were called Oestrimni derived from it .
Oestreminis is mentioned in Ora Maritima ("Sea Coasts"), a poem that was inspired and influenced by a periplus of Greek sailors that was published much earlier . Rufus Avienus Festus , Roman poet of geographical subjects of the 4th century writes there that Oestriminis was settled by the Oestrimni , a people who lived there for a very long time and who fled from their original settlement area after an invasion by Serpens . Serpens, snake , stands for a fabulous animal and can also mean dragons .
The inhabitants of the semi-mythological "snake country" (see below) were known by name in ancient Greece, but there is no historical or archaeological evidence for the legend. The poetic name Oestrimni was used at times for all Palaeolithic inhabitants of the Atlantic part of the Iberian Peninsula .
The expulsion of the Oestrimni in Ora Maritima:
Post illa rursum quae supra fati sumus,
magnus patescit aequoris fusi sinus
Ophiussam ad usque. rursum from huius litore
internum ad aequor, qua mare insinuare se
dixi ante terris, quodque Sardum nuncupant,
septem dierum tenditur pediti via.
Ophiussa porro tanta panditur latus
quantam iacere Pelopis audis insulam
Graiorum in agro. haec dicta primo Oestrymnis est
locos et arva Oestrymnicis habitantibus,
post multa serpens effugavit incolas
vacuamque glaebam nominis fecit sui.
After what we said above,
A great bay opens up into which the waters flow
all the way to Ophiussa. Again from its beach
to the inner waters, called Sardum, through which,
as I said before, the sea nestles in the land,
the way of him extends
who travels on foot, seven days.
Ophiussa extends so far in its breadth
as one hears it from the island of the Pelops (= Peloponnese), which lies on Greek soil. This (land) was called Oestrymnis in the beginning
those who lived in the Oestrymnian places and corridors,
after a long time the snake chased away the residents
