Lutetia (sometimes Lutetia Parisiorum or Lucotecia, in French Lutèce) was a town in pre-Roman an Roman Gaul. The Gallo-Roman city was a forerunner of the re-established Merovingian town that is the ancestor of present-day Paris. Lutetia and Paris have little in common save their position where an island, the Île de la Cité, created a convenient ford of the Seine. The name comes from the Latin, meaning Midwater-dwelling.