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69-612: The Belgae ( / ˈ b ɛ l dʒ iː , ˈ b ɛ l ɡ aɪ / ) were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul , between the English Channel , the west bank of the Rhine , and the northern bank of the river Seine , from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth by Julius Caesar in his account of his wars in Gaul. Some peoples in southern Britain were also called Belgae and had apparently moved from

138-641: A branch of the Belgae settled in Ireland around the 5th century BC , later becoming the historical Iverni (Érainn) and their offshoots. He believes the memory of Belgae settlers was preserved in medieval Irish legend as the Fir Bolg . O'Rahilly's theory has been challenged by historians and archaeologists, and is no longer accepted. Fintan O'Toole suggested the Keshcarrigan Bowl is evidence for

207-426: A city, possibly the seat of a bishop; other pagi were administered from a vicus that might be no more than a cluster of houses and an informal market; yet other pagi in the areas of the great agricultural estates ( latifundia ) were administered through the villa at the center. The historian of Christianity Peter Brown has pointed out that in its original sense paganus meant a civilian or commoner, one who

276-426: A city-state, such a unit as Jericho might have become in its later stages … tribalism can be viewed as reaction to the formation of complex political structure rather than a necessary preliminary stage in its evolution. The term "tribe" was in common use in the field of anthropology until the late 1950s and 1960s. The continued use of the term has attracted controversy among anthropologists and other academics active in

345-536: A community within a larger polity ; Julius Caesar , for instance, refers to pagi within the greater polity of the Celtic Helvetii . The pagus and vicus (a small nucleated settlement or village) are characteristic of pre-urban organization of the countryside. In Latin epigraphy of the Republican era , pagus refers to local territorial divisions of the peoples of the central Apennines and

414-724: A group of tribes within the Belgic alliance as the "Germani", distinguishing them from their neighbours. The most important of these tribes in relation to Caesar's campaigns were the Eburones . The other way he used the term was to refer to those related tribes east of the Rhine, who were not Celtic. So the Germani among the Belgae are called, based on Caesar's account, the Germani cisrhenani , to distinguish them from other Germani living east of

483-505: A leadership responsive to the needs of neighboring states (the so-called tribes of the United States or British India provide good examples of this). The British favored the label "aboriginal tribe" for some communities. India adopted a republican constitution in 1950, after three years of debate in its Constituent Assembly. During the debate, Jaipal Singh, a member of Munda tribe from Central India advocated for special provisions for

552-852: A political unit formed from an organisation of families (including clans and lineages) based on social or ideological solidarity. Membership of a tribe may be understood as being based on factors such as kinship ("clan"), ethnicity ("race"), language, dwelling place, political group, religious beliefs, oral tradition and/or cultural practices . Archaeologists continue to explore the development of pre-state tribes. Current research suggests that tribal structures constituted one type of adaptation to situations providing plentiful yet unpredictable resources. Such structures proved flexible enough to coordinate production and distribution of food in times of scarcity, without limiting or constraining people during times of surplus. Anthropologist Morton Fried argued in 1967 that bands organized into tribes in order to resist

621-553: A shield, made his way to the front line, and quickly organised his forces. The two Roman legions guarding the baggage train at the rear finally arrived and helped to turn the tide of the battle. Caesar says the Nervii were almost annihilated in the battle, and is effusive in his tribute to their bravery, calling them "heroes" (for more details see Battle of the Sabis ). The Atuatuci, who were marching to their aid, turned back on hearing of

690-413: A territory slightly more to the south than the early medieval Romance -Germanic language border", but van Durme accepts that Germanic did not block "Celticisation coming from the south" so "both phenomena were simultaneous and interfering". The medieval Gesta Treverorum compiled by monks of Trier claims that the Belgae were descendants of Trebeta , an otherwise unattested legendary founder of Trier,

759-690: A tribe called the Tungri living where the Germani cisrhenani had lived, and he also stated that they had once been called the Germani (although Caesar had claimed to have wiped out the name of the main tribe, the Eburones). Other tribes that may have been included among the Belgae in some contexts were the Leuci , Treveri and Mediomatrici . Posidonius includes the Armoricani , as well. Caesar conquered

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828-483: A verbal root, "fasten" ( pango ); it may be translated in the word as "boundary staked out on the ground". In semantics , * pag- used in pāgus is a stative verb with an unmarked lexical aspect of state resulting from completed action: "it is having been staked out", converted into a noun by -us , a type recognizable in English adjectives such as surveyed, defined, noted, etc. English does not use

897-433: Is assumed to express local social structures as they existed variously. As an informal designation for a rural district, pagus was a flexible term to encompass the cultural horizons of "folk" whose lives were circumscribed by their locality: agricultural workers, peasants, slaves. Within the reduced area of Diocletian's subdivided provinces, the pagani could have several kinds of focal centers. Some were administered from

966-527: Is generally held by linguists to be a compound formed from two elements: tri- 'three' and bhu , bu , fu , a verbal root meaning 'to be'. Latin tribus is held to derive from the Proto-Indo-European compound * tri-dʰh₁u/o- ('rendered in three, tripartite division'; compare with Umbrian trifu 'trinity, district', Sanskrit trídha 'threefold'). Considerable debate has accompanied efforts to define and characterize tribes. In

1035-719: The Atrebates , Caesar's former ally, fled to Britain after participating in Vercingetorix 's rebellion and either joined or established a British branch of his tribe. Based on the development of imagery on coins, by the time of the Roman conquest , some of the tribes of south-eastern Britain likely were ruled by a Belgic nobility and were culturally influenced by them. The later civitas (administrative division) of Roman Britain had towns including Portus Adurni ( Portchester ) and Clausentum ( Southampton ). The civitas capital

1104-662: The English Channel into southern Britain in Caesar's time. Caesar asserts they had first crossed the channel as raiders, only later establishing themselves on the island. The precise extent of their conquests is unknown. After the Roman conquest of Great Britain, the civitas of the Belgae was bordered to the north by the British Atrebates , who were also a Belgic tribe, and to the east by the Regni , who were probably linked to

1173-441: The Germani cisrhenani ) with no distinction of language intended. The east of the Rhine was not necessarily inhabited by Germanic speakers at this time. It has been remarked that Germanic speakers might have been no closer than the river Elbe in the time of Caesar. However, studies of place names, such as those of Maurits Gysseling , have been argued to show evidence of the pre-Roman presence of early Germanic languages throughout

1242-474: The Germani cisrhenani , and this is indeed also true of the tribes immediately over the Rhine at this time, such as the Tencteri and Usipetes . Surviving inscriptions also indicate that Gaulish was spoken in at least part of Belgic territory. The Romans were not precise in their ethnography of northern barbarians : by "Germanic", Caesar may simply have meant "originating east of the Rhine" (the homeland of

1311-639: The Native American tribes of North America, tribes are considered sovereign nations , that have retained their sovereignty or been granted legal recognition by the federal government. Pagus In ancient Rome , the Latin word pagus (plural pagi ) was an administrative term designating a rural subdivision of a tribal territory, which included individual farms, villages ( vici ), and strongholds ( oppida ) serving as refuges, as well as an early medieval geographical term. From

1380-638: The Oxford English Dictionary , it remains unclear if this form is the result of a borrowing from a Romance language source (such as Old French tribu ) or if the form is a result of borrowing directly from Latin (the Middle English plural tribuz 1250 may be a direct representation of Latin plural tribūs ). Modern English tribe may also be a result of a common pattern wherein English borrows nouns directly from Latin and drops suffixes, including -us . Latin tribus

1449-616: The Proto-Celtic root *belg- or *bolg- meaning "to swell (particularly with anger/battle fury/etc.)", cognate with the Dutch adjective gebelgd "very angry" (weak perfect participle of the verb belgen "to become angry") and verbolgen "being angry" (strong perfect participle of obsolete verbelgen "to make angry"), as well as the Old English verb belgan , "to be angry" (from Proto-Germanic *balgiz ), derived ultimately from

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1518-502: The Proto-Indo-European root *bhelgh- ("to swell, bulge, billow"). Thus, a Proto-Celtic ethnic name *Bolgoi could be interpreted as "the people who swell (particularly with anger/battle fury)". In Caesar's usage, Belgium is a geographical subregion comprising the Bellovaci , Ambiani , Atrebates , and Veromandui . These four communities are widely thought to have been the original Belgae in Gaul. Julius Caesar describes Gaul at

1587-628: The civitas of Rotomagus (Rouen), which formed the pagus Rotomagensis ( Roumois ); in addition there were the pagi Caletus ( Pays de Caux ), Vilcassinus (the Vexin ), the Tellaus ( Talou ); Bayeux , the pagus Bajocassinus ( Bessin , including briefly in the 9th century the Otlinga Saxonia ); that of Lisieux the pagus Lexovinus ( Lieuvin ); that of Coutances the p. Corilensis and p. Constantinus ( Cotentin ); that of Avranches

1656-504: The pagus under the Carolingian Empire to be the territory held by a count, but Carolingian sources never refer to counts of particular pagi , and from the 10th century onwards the "county" or comitatus was sometimes explicitly contrasted to the pagus . Unlike the comitati , the centers of which are often identifiable as the count's seat, towns are not known to have derived any special political significance from serving as

1725-723: The social sciences with scholars of anthropological and ethnohistorical research challenging the utility of the concept. In 1970, anthropologist J. Clyde Mitchell wrote: Despite the membership boundaries for a tribe being conceptually simple, in reality they are often vague and subject to change over time. In his 1975 study, The Notion of the Tribe , Fried provided numerous examples of tribes that encompassed members who spoke different languages and practiced different rituals, or who shared languages and rituals with members of other tribes. Similarly, he provided examples of tribes in which people followed different political leaders, or followed

1794-464: The 'Adibasi' -- a translation into Hindi of 'aboriginal'. His arguments proved persuasive. These communities were to have seats in the legislatures and positions in government employment 'reserved' for them. Each of the assembly members prepared a list of communities that deserved special protections. These names were listed in a "Schedule" (appendix) to the Constitution. So these came to be called

1863-444: The 'Scheduled Tribes', often abbreviated to ST. Second, bands could form "secondary" tribes as a means to defend against state expansion. Members of bands would form more clearly bounded and centralized polities, because such polities could begin producing surpluses that could support a standing army that could fight against states, and they would have a leadership that could co-ordinate economic production and military activities. In

1932-490: The 4th through the 1st centuries BC. The Belgae of this period do not appear to have drunk beer. Caesar's book Commentarii de Bello Gallico begins: "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws." However, many modern scholars believe that

2001-446: The Belgae as well. The arrival and spread of Aylesford-Swarling pottery across the southeastern corner of Britain has been related to the Belgic invasion since Arthur Evans published his excavation of Aylesford in 1890, which was then thought to show "the demonstrable reality of a Belgic invasion", according to Sir Barry Cunliffe , although more recent studies tend to downplay the role of migration in favour of increasing trade links;

2070-431: The Belgae decided to disband their combined force and return to their own lands. Caesar's informants advised him that whichever tribe Caesar attacked first, the others would come to their defence. They broke camp shortly before midnight. At daybreak, satisfied the retreat was not a trap, Caesar sent cavalry to harass the rear guard, followed by three legions. Many of the Belgae were killed in battle. Caesar next marched into

2139-399: The Belgae were a Celtic-speaking group. On the other hand, at least part of the Belgae may also have had significant cultural and historical connections to peoples east of the Rhine, including Germanic peoples , judging from archaeological, placename and textual evidence. It has also been argued based on placename studies that the older language of the area, though apparently Indo-European ,

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2208-551: The Belgae, beginning in 57 BC. He writes that the Belgae were conspiring and arming themselves in response to his earlier conquests; to counter this threat, he raised two new legions and ordered his Gallic allies, the Aedui , to invade the territory of the Bellovaci , the largest and fiercest of the Belgae tribes. Wary of the numbers and bravery of the Belgae, Caesar initially avoided a pitched battle, resorting mainly to cavalry skirmishes to probe their strengths and weaknesses. Once he

2277-538: The Belgic area north of the Ardennes , where the Germani cisrhenani lived. The sound changes described by " Grimm's law " appear to have affected names with older forms, apparently already in the second century BC. Strong evidence for old Celtic placenames, though, is found in the Ardennes and to the south of them. According to Strabo , the country of the Belgae extended along the coast where 15 tribes were living from

2346-457: The Belgic tribes spoke a variety of Gaulish as their main language by Caesar's time, and all of them used such languages in at least some contexts. Luc van Durme summarizes competing evidence of Celtic and Germanic influence at the time of Caesar by saying that "one has to accept the rather remarkable conclusion that Caesar must have witnessed a situation opposing Celtic and Germanic in Belgium, in

2415-487: The Nervii, Menapii and Morini, revolted again and wiped out fifteen cohorts, only to be put down by Caesar. The Belgae fought in the uprising of Vercingetorix in 52 BC. After their final subjugation, Caesar combined the three parts of Gaul, the territory of the Belgae, Celtae and Aquitani, into a single unwieldy province ( Gallia Comata , "long-haired Gaul") that was reorganized by the emperor Augustus into its traditional cultural divisions. The province of Gallia Belgica

2484-736: The Rhenus (Rhine) to the Liger (Loire). Strabo also says that "Augustus Caesar, when dividing the country into four parts, united the Keltae to the Narbonnaise; the Aquitani he preserved the same as Julius Caesar, but added thereto fourteen other nations of those who dwelt between the Garonne and the river Loire, and dividing the rest into two parts, the one extending to the upper districts of the Rhine ( Gallia Lugdunensis ) he made dependent upon Lugdunum,

2553-542: The Rhine in what he understood to be their homeland. However, the later historian Tacitus was informed that the name Germania was known to have changed in meaning: In other words, Tacitus understood that the collective name Germani had first been used in Gaul, for a specific people there with connections beyond the Rhine, the Tungri being the name of the people living where the Eburones had lived in later imperial times, and

2622-883: The Roman Augusta Treverorum , "Augusta of the Treveri ". Caesar names the following as Belgic tribes, which can be related to later Roman provinces: Southwest: possibly not in "Belgium": Northwest and considered remote by Romans: South, not in alliance against Rome: Caesar sometimes calls them Belgae, sometimes contrasts them with Belgae. Descendants of the Cimbri , living near Germani Cisrhenani : Possibly Belgae, later within Belgica I: Not Belgae, later in Germania Superior (still later Germania I): Later, Tacitus mentioned

2691-423: The continent. T. F. O'Rahilly believed that some had moved further west and he equated them with the Fir Bolg in Ireland . The Roman province of Gallia Belgica was named after the continental Belgae. The term continued to be used in the region until the present day and is reflected in the name of the modern country of Belgium . The consensus among linguists is that the ethnic name Belgae probably comes from

2760-459: The defeat and retreated to one stronghold, were put under siege, and soon surrendered and handed over their arms. However, the surrender was a ploy, and the Atuatuci, armed with weapons they had hidden, tried to break out during the night. The Romans had the advantage of position and killed 4,000. The rest, about 53,000, were sold into slavery. In 53 BC, the Eburones, led by Ambiorix , along with

2829-555: The forests and attacked the approaching Roman column at the river Sabis (previously thought to be the Sambre , but recently the Selle is thought to be more probable). Their attack was quick and unexpected. The element of surprise briefly left the Romans exposed. Some of the Romans did not have time to take the covers off their shields or to even put on their helmets. However, Caesar grabbed

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2898-400: The funerary practice of communities to the north and south. Around this same time, a characteristic form of enclosed sanctuary began to be built, and from the late 2nd through the mid 1st centuries BC, fortifications with a high earthen rampart and a wide, flat-bottomed ditch are concentrated there. The coinage of the Belgae in Gaul shows commonalities in design and distribution patterns from

2967-471: The grounds that neither the well nor the hill-fort appear in the meaning of pāgus . The word pagus is the origin of the word for country in Romance languages , such as pays ( French ) and país ( Spanish ), and more remotely, for English " peasant ". Corresponding adjective paganus served as the source for " pagan ". In classical Latin , pagus referred to a country district or to

3036-596: The mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war". Ancient sources such as Caesar are not always clear about the things used to define ethnicity today. While Caesar or his sources described the Belgae as distinctly different from the Gauls, Strabo stated that the differences between the Celts (Gauls) and Belgae in countenance, language, politics and way of life

3105-1280: The modern state system. Tribes have lost their legitimacy to conduct traditional functions, such as tithing , delivering justice and defending territory, with these being replaced by states functions and institutions, such as taxation, law courts and the military. Most have suffered decline and loss of cultural identity. Some have adapted to the new political context and transformed their culture and practices in order to survive, whilst others have secured legal rights and protections. Fried proposed that most surviving tribes do not have their origin in pre-state tribes, but rather in pre-state bands. Such "secondary" tribes, he suggested, developed as modern products of state expansion. Bands comprise small, mobile, and fluid social formations with weak leadership . They do not generate surpluses, pay no taxes, and support no standing army. Fried argued that secondary tribes develop in one of two ways. First, states could set them up as means to extend administrative and economic influence in their hinterland, where direct political control costs too much. States would encourage (or require) people on their frontiers to form more clearly bounded and centralized polities, because such polities could begin producing surpluses and taxes, and would have

3174-515: The movement of people into Ireland following upheaval and displacement, triggered by the Belgae arriving into Britain as refugees. Tribe In the United States, Native American tribes are legally considered to have "domestic dependent nation" status within the territorial United States, with a government-to-government relationship with the federal government. The modern English word tribe stems from Middle English tribu , which ultimately derives from Latin tribus . According to

3243-479: The nature, structure and practices of tribes. Writing on the Kurdish peoples, anthropologist Martin van Bruinessen argued, "the terms of standard anthropological usage, 'tribe', 'clan' and 'lineage' appear to be a straitjacket that ill fits the social reality of Kurdistan". There are further negative connotations of the term "tribe" that have reduced its use. Writing in 2013, scholar Matthew Ortoleva noted that "like

3312-546: The noun: "the surveyed", but Latin characteristically does. Considering that the ancients marked out municipal districts with boundary stones, the root meaning is nothing more than land surveyed for a municipality with stakes and later marked by boundary stones, a process that has not changed over the millennia. Earlier hypotheses concerning the derivation of pāgus suggested that it is a Greek loan from either πήγη , pége , 'village well', or πάγος , págos , 'hill-fort'. William Smith opposed these on

3381-634: The ostensible centers of pagi . The majority of modern French pays are roughly coextensive with the old counties (e.g., county of Comminges , county of Ponthieu , etc.) For instance, at the beginning of the 5th century, when the Notitia provinciarum et civitatum Galliae was drawn up, the Provincia Gallia Lugdunensis Secunda formed the ecclesiastical province of Rouen , with six suffragan sees; it contained seven cities ( civitates ). The province of Rouen included

3450-472: The other [he assigned] to the Belgae ( Gallia Belgica )." Apart from the Germani, the report of Caesar seems to indicate that more of the Belgae had some Germanic ethnicity, but this is not necessarily what defines a tribe as Belgic. Edith Wightman proposed that Caesar can be read as treating only the southwestern Belgic tribes, the Suessiones, Viromandui and Ambiani and perhaps some of their neighbours, as

3519-447: The p. Abrincatinus ( Avranchin ); that of Sez the p. Oximensis ( Hiémois ), the p. Sagensis and p. Corbonensis (Corbonnais); and that of Evreux the p. Ebroicinus (Evrecin) and p. Madriacensis (pays de Madrie ). The Welsh successor kingdom of Powys derived its name from pagus or pagenses , and gives its name to the modern Welsh county . The pagus was the equivalent of what English-speaking historians sometimes refer to as

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3588-412: The popular imagination, tribes reflect a primordial social structure from which all subsequent civilizations and states developed. Anthropologist Elman Service presented a system of classification for societies in all human cultures, based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state . This system of classification contains four categories: Tribes are therefore considered to be

3657-646: The question remains unclear. A large number of coins of the Ambiani dating to the mid-second century BC have been found in southern Britain and the remains of a possible Belgic fort have been unearthed in Kent. Within memory of Caesar's time, a king of the Suessiones (also referred to as Suaeuconi) called Diviciacus was not only the most powerful king of Belgic Gaul, but also ruled territory in Britain. Commius of

3726-460: The reign of Diocletian (284–305 AD) onwards, the pagus referred to the smallest administrative unit of a province . These geographical units were used to describe territories in the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, without any political or administrative meaning. Pāgus is a native Latin word from a root pāg- , a lengthened grade of Indo-European * paǵ- ,

3795-416: The same leaders as members of other tribes. He concluded that tribes in general are characterized by fluid boundaries, heterogeneity and dynamism, and are not parochial. Part of the difficulty with the term is that it seeks to construct and apply a common conceptual framework across diverse cultures and peoples. Different anthropologists studying different peoples therefore draw conflicting conclusions about

3864-684: The territory of the Suessiones and besieged the town of Noviodunum ( Soissons ). Seeing the Romans' siege engines , the Suessiones surrendered, whereupon Caesar turned his attention to the Bellovaci, who had retreated into the fortress of Bratuspantium (between modern Amiens and Beauvais ). They quickly surrendered, as did the Ambiani. The Nervii , along with the Atrebates and Viromandui, decided to fight (the Atuatuci had also agreed to join them, but had not yet arrived). They concealed themselves in

3933-412: The third through the first centuries BC within this subregion, inhabited in the time of Caesar by Bellovaci, Ambiani, Atrebates, and Veromandui. From 250 BC onward, the disposal of the dead was primarily through cremation, with some inhumation practiced. Ceramics and brooches are typical grave goods, while items of feasting appear in wealthier graves. The absence of weapons distinguishes these burials from

4002-643: The time of his conquests (58–51 BC) as divided into three parts, inhabited by the Aquitani in the southwest, the Gauls in the biggest central part, who in their own language were called Celtae , and the Belgae in the north. Each of these three parts, he says, differed in terms of customs, laws and language. He noted that the Belgae, were "the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate

4071-592: The traditional religions of antiquity. The concept of the pagus survived the collapse of the Empire of the West. In the Frankish kingdoms of the 8th–9th centuries, however, the pagus had come to serve as a local geographical designation rather than an administrative unit. Particular localities were often named as parts of more than one pagus , sometimes even within the same document. Historians traditionally considered

4140-575: The true ethnic Belgae, as opposed to those in a political and military alliance with them. She reads Caesar as implying a "transition zone" of mixed ethnicity and ancestry for the Menapii , Nervii and Morini , all living in the northwest of the Belgic region, neighbours to the Germani cisrhenani in the northeast. (Caesar also mentions his allies the Remi being closest to the Celts amongst the Belgae.) It seems that, whatever their ancestry, at least some of

4209-422: The violence and exploitation of early kingdoms and states. He wrote: In fact, there is no absolute necessity for a tribal stage as defined by Sahlins and Service, no necessity, that is, for such a stage to appear in the transit from a single settlement with embedded political organization, to a complex-state structured polity. Such a developmental process could have gone on within a unit that we may conceptualize as

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4278-415: The word Indian , [t]ribe is a word that has connotations of colonialism." Survival International says "It is important to make the distinction between tribal and indigenous because tribal peoples have a special status acknowledged in international law as well as problems in addition to those faced by the wider category of indigenous peoples." Few tribes today remain isolated from the development of

4347-552: Was a small one, unlike the difference between the Aquitanians and Celts. The fact that the Belgae were living in Gaul means that in one sense they were Gauls. This may be Caesar's meaning when he says "The Belgae have the same method of attacking a fortress as the rest of the Gauls". Inconsistently, Caesar in Bello Gallico , II.4 also contrasted them with Gauls: So Caesar used the word "Germani" in two ways. He described

4416-445: Was at Venta Belgarum ( Winchester ), which was built on top of an Iron Age oppidum (this was itself built on the site of two earlier abandoned hillforts ); Winchester remains Hampshire's county town to this day. In addition to Venta Belgarum, the ancient geographer Ptolemy lists Aquae Calidae ( Bath ) and Iscalis as poleis of the Belgae. In his theory of Ireland's prehistory, T. F. O'Rahilly suggested in 1946 that

4485-473: Was bounded on its east by the Rhine and extended all the way from the North Sea to Lake Constance ( Lacus Brigantinus ), including parts of what is now western Switzerland, with its capital at the city of the Remi (Reims). Under Diocletian , Belgica Prima (capital Augusta Trevirorum, Trier ) and Belgica Secunda (capital Reims ) formed part of the diocese of Gaul. The Belgae had made their way across

4554-473: Was excluded from power and thus regarded as of lesser account; away from the administrative center, whether that was the seat of a bishop, a walled town or merely a fortified village, such inhabitants of the outlying districts, the pagi , tended to cling to the old ways and gave their name to "pagans"; the word was used pejoratively by Christians in the Latin West to demean those who declined to convert from

4623-499: Was later adopted as a collective name for the non-Celtic peoples beyond the Rhine, the other, better-known way that Caesar used the term. The cultural cohesion of Belgium as Caesar sketched it is suggested by the maintaining of these borders, more or less, in administrative divisions ( pagi ) mapped out later by the Romans and still evident in the parishes of the Carolingian era . Archaeology suggests cultural continuities from

4692-466: Was not Celtic (see Nordwestblock ) and that Celtic, though influential amongst the elite, might never have been the main language of the part of the Belgic area north of the Ardennes. For example, Maurits Gysseling suggested that prior to Celtic and Germanic influences the Belgae may have comprised a distinct Indo-European branch, termed Belgian . However, most of the Belgic tribal and personal names recorded are identifiably Gaulish , including those of

4761-464: Was satisfied his troops were a match for them, he made camp on a low hill protected by a marsh at the front and the river Aisne behind, near Bibrax (between modern Laon and Reims ) in the territory of the Remi. The Belgae attacked over the river, but were repulsed after a fierce battle. Realising they could not dislodge the Romans and aware of the approach of the Aedui into the lands of the Bellovaci,

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