Misplaced Pages

#783216

58-560: In a comment in his book Germania , Tacitus remarks that Germani was the original tribal name of the Tungri with whom the Gauls were in contact; among the Gauls the term Germani came to be widely applied. The sentence has been the subject of frequent debate about the exact details. Discussing the names of Germanic peoples or races ( gentis appellationes ), Tacitus noted that some names were speculated to be true and ancient, but "Germania"

116-541: A milliaria equitata (nominally 1000 men strong), was stationed at Birrens fort from 159 to about 184. Cohors IV Tungrorum was based in Abusina during the second century. Tausius, the Roman soldier who killed the emperor Pertinax , was a Tungrian. The goddess Vihansa (probably meaning 'holy deity') is mentioned on a bronze tablet found near Tongeren and engraved by a centurion dedicating his shield and spear to

174-419: A 2012 study that Germania played a major role in the formation of the core concepts of Nazi ideology. The mainstream German reception is much less sensationalist and sees Tacitus's description as more patronizing than laudatory, a predecessor of the classical noble savage concept which started in the 17th and 18th centuries in western European literature. The Codex Aesinas is believed to be portions of

232-458: A certain ferruginous taste, only to be perceived after it has been drunk. This water is strongly purgative , is curative of tertian fevers , and disperses urinary calculi : upon the application of fire it assumes a turbid appearance, and finally turns red It has been suggested that this refers to the well-known waters of Spa in the province of Liège , or else to waters found at Tongeren, which are suitably iron-bearing, and today referred to as

290-673: A climate as horrid as that of Germania. They are divided into three large branches, the Ingaevones , the Irminones , and the Istaevones , deriving their ancestry from three sons of Mannus , son of Tuisto , their common forefather. In chapter 4, he mentions that they all have common physical characteristics, blue eyes ( truces et caerulei oculi = "sky-coloured, azure, dark blue, dark green"), reddish hair ( rutilae comae = "red, golden-red, reddish yellow"), and large bodies, vigorous at

348-489: A form of folk assembly rather similar to the public things recorded in later Germanic sources: in these public deliberations, the final decision rests with the men of the group as a whole. Tacitus further discusses the role of women in chapters 7 and 8, mentioning that they often accompany the men to battle and offer encouragement. He says that the men are often motivated to fight for the women because of an extreme fear of losing them to captivity. Tacitus says (chapter 18) that

406-511: A short-lived Batavian Republic and, in the colony of the Dutch East Indies , a capital that was named Batavia . Though since Indonesian independence the city is called Jakarta , its inhabitants up to the present still call themselves Betawi or Orang Betawi , i.e. "People of Batavia" – a name ultimately derived from the ancient Batavians. The success of this tale of origins was mostly due to resemblance in anthropology, which

464-567: A similar—albeit shorter—essay on the lands and peoples of Britannia in his Agricola (chapters 10–13). Tacitus himself is thought to have never travelled to Germania , thus his information is second-hand at best. Ronald Syme supposed that Tacitus closely copied the lost Bella Germaniae of Pliny the Elder , since the Germania is in some places outdated: in its description of Danubian groups, says Syme, "they are loyal clients of

522-521: A single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey ( Codex Hersfeldensis ) in 1425. This was brought to Italy, where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II , first examined and analyzed the book. This sparked interest among German humanists , including Conrad Celtes , Johannes Aventinus , and Ulrich von Hutten and beyond. The peoples of medieval Germany (the Kingdom of Germany in

580-621: A strong equestrian preoccupation. On the south bank of the Waal (in what is now Nijmegen) a Roman administrative center was built, called Oppidum Batavorum . An Oppidum was a fortified warehouse, where a tribe's treasures were stored and guarded. This centre was razed during the Batavian Revolt. The Smetius Collection was instrumental in settling the debate about the exact location of the Batavians. The first Batavi commander we know of

638-590: A tribe of the Chatti , a tribe in Germany also never mentioned by Caesar (unless they were his " Suebi "), who were forced by internal dissension to move to their new home. The time when this happened is unknown, but Caesar does describe forced movements of tribes from the east in his time, such as the Usipetes and Tencteri . Tacitus also reports that before their arrival the area had been "an uninhabited district on

SECTION 10

#1732766111784

696-800: Is also applied to several military units employed by the Romans that were originally raised among the Batavi. The tribal name, probably a derivation from batawjō ("good island", from Germanic bat- "good, excellent", which is also in the English "better", and awjō "island, land near water"), refers to the region's fertility, today known as the fruitbasket of the Netherlands (the Betuwe ). The Batavi themselves are not mentioned by Julius Caesar in his commentary Commentarii de Bello Gallico , although he

754-640: Is named Chariovalda , who led a charge across the Vīsurgis ( Weser ) river against the Cherusci led by Arminius during the campaigns of Germanicus in Germania Transrhenana . Tacitus ( De origine et situ Germanorum XXIX) described the Batavi as the bravest of the tribes of the area, hardened in the Germanic wars, with cohorts under their own commanders transferred to Britannia . They retained

812-705: Is often thought to have founded his dynasty's Germanic bodyguard , which was at least in later generations dominated by Batavi. But he did mention the "Batavian island" in the Rhine river . The island's easternmost point is at a split in the Rhine, one arm being the Waal the other the Lower Rhine / Old Rhine (hence the Latin name Insula Batavorum , "Island of the Batavi"). Much later Tacitus wrote that they had originally been

870-597: The Codex Aesinas was given to the National Library in Rome, catalogued as Cod. Vitt. Em. 1631 . Notes Bibliography Further reading Batavians The Batavi [bäˈt̪äːu̯iː] were an ancient Germanic tribe that lived around the modern Dutch Rhine delta in the area that the Romans called Batavia , from the second half of the first century BC to the third century AD. The name

928-747: The Eighty Years' War . The mix of fancy and fact in the Cronyke van Hollandt, Zeelandt ende Vriesland (called the Divisiekroniek ) by the Augustinian friar and humanist Cornelius Gerardi Aurelius, first published in 1517, brought the spare remarks in Tacitus' newly rediscovered Germania to a popular public; it was being reprinted as late as 1802. Contemporary Dutch virtues of independence, fortitude and industry were fully recognizable among

986-585: The Holy Roman Empire ) were heterogenous, separated in distinct kingdoms , such as the Bavarians , Franconians , and Swabians , distinctions which remain evident in the German language and culture after the unification of Germany in 1871 (aside from Austria) and the establishment of modern Austria and Germany . During the medieval period, a self-designation of "Germani" was virtually never used;

1044-569: The Rhine and Danube borders, and Germanic mercenaries in Rome. One of the minor works of Tacitus, Germania was not widely cited or used before the Renaissance . In antiquity, Lucian appears to imitate a sentence from it. It was largely forgotten during the Middle Ages . In the West, it was cited by Cassiodorus in the sixth century and used more extensively by Rudolf of Fulda in

1102-581: The Sitones , "resemble [the Suevi Scandinavians] in all respects but one - woman is the ruling sex." "This," Tacitus comments, "is the measure of their decline, I will not say below freedom, but even below decent slavery." Ethnography had a long and distinguished heritage in classical literature , and the Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from Herodotus to Julius Caesar . Tacitus himself had already written

1160-608: The civil war of 69 AD . The Tungri were mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum , an early fifth-century document, in which every military and governmental post in the late Roman Empire was transcribed. The document mentions the Tribune of the First Cohort of Tungri stationed at Vercovicium ( Housesteads , Northumberland) on Hadrian's Wall where it was located from 205/208. The 2nd Cohort of Tungrians, also

1218-654: The "Plinius bron". Apart from Tongeren the capital, both Pliny and Ptolemy 's Geography are unclear concerning the exact boundaries of the Tungri's country but are understood as placing it east of the Scheldt , and to the north of the Arduenna Silva ( Forest of Ardennes ), somewhere near the middle and lower valley of the Mosa ( Meuse ). The Eburones had a fort called Atuatuca (or Aduatuca ). Caesar reported that

SECTION 20

#1732766111784

1276-593: The "barbarians"—the British Celts— at the battle of the River Medway , 43: The barbarians thought that Romans would not be able to cross it without a bridge, and consequently bivouacked in rather careless fashion on the opposite bank; but he sent across a detachment of Germanic tribesmen, who were accustomed to swim easily in full armour across the most turbulent streams. [...] Thence the Britons retired to

1334-603: The Batavians in more scholarly history represented in Hugo Grotius ' Liber de Antiquitate Republicae Batavicorum (1610). The origin was perpetuated by Romeyn de Hooghe's Spiegel van Staat der Vereenigden Nederlanden ("Mirror of the State of the United Netherlands," 1706), which also ran to many editions, and it was revived in the atmosphere of Romantic nationalism in the late eighteenth-century reforms that saw

1392-652: The Bavarian town of Passau descends from the Roman Batavis , which was named after the Batavi. The town's name is old as it shows the typical effects of the High German consonant shift (b > p, t > ss). In the 16th-century emergence of a popular foundation story and origin myth for the Dutch people , the Batavians came to be regarded as their ancestors during their national struggle for independence during

1450-498: The Codex Hersfeldensis – the lost Germania manuscript brought to Rome from Hersfeld Abbey. It was rediscovered in 1902 by priest-philologist Cesare Annibaldi in the possession of Count Aurelio Balleani of Iesi . Temporarily transferred to Florence for the controls at the state body of the fine arts, the manuscript was severely damaged during the 1966 flood . It was later restored and brought back to Iesi, and in 1994,

1508-795: The Condrusi (one of the Germani tribes mentioned by Caesar) and the Texuandri (perhaps the same as the Eburones) continued to exist as recognized groups for the administrative purpose of mustering troops. To the north of the Tungri, in the Rhine-Maas delta , were the Batavians , a similarly new formation, apparently made up of incoming Chatti , with a possible contribution from the Eburones. To

1566-658: The Eburones were the most important. The Eburones, who apparently lived as far east as Cologne, were led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus . Also neighbouring these tribes where the Aduatuci , whose origin Caesar describes more specifically as having descended from the Cimbri and Teutones , against whom the Germani had been the only tribe in Gaul to successfully defend themselves. Their descendants, if there were any, presumably lived amongst

1624-607: The Emperor's horse guards, the Equites singulares Augusti . A Batavian contingent was used in an amphibious assault on Ynys Mon (Anglesey) , taking the assembled Druids by surprise, as they were only expecting Roman ships. Numerous altars and tombstones of the cohorts of Batavi, dating to the second century and third century, have been found along Hadrian's Wall , notably at Castlecary and Carrawburgh . As well as in Germany, Yugoslavia , Hungary, Romania and Austria. Despite

1682-582: The Empire ... Which is peculiar. The defection of these peoples in the year 89 during Domitian's war against the Dacians modified the whole frontier policy of the Empire." While Pliny may have been the primary source, scholars have identified others; among them are Caesar 's Gallic Wars , Strabo , Diodorus Siculus , Posidonius , Aufidius Bassus , and numerous nonliterary sources, presumably based on interviews with traders and soldiers who had ventured beyond

1740-540: The Germanic people (chapters 1–27); it then describes individual peoples, beginning with those dwelling closest to Roman lands and ending on the uttermost shores of the Baltic, among the amber-gathering Aesti , the Fenni , and the unknown peoples beyond them. Tacitus says (chapter 2) that physically, the Germanic peoples appear to be a distinct nation, not an admixture of their neighbors, since nobody would desire to migrate to

1798-412: The Germanic peoples are mainly content with one wife, except for a few political marriages, and specifically and explicitly compares this practice favorably to other cultures. He also records (chapter 19) that adultery is very rare, and that an adulterous woman is shunned afterward by the community regardless of her beauty. In chapter 45, Tacitus mentions that the people to the north of the Germanic peoples,

Tungri - Misplaced Pages Continue

1856-522: The Rhine), was recognized first by Drusus , who built a massive fortress ( castra ) and a headquarters ( praetorium ) in imperial style. The latter was in use until the Batavian revolt. Archeological evidence suggests they lived in small villages, composed of six to 12 houses in the very fertile lands between the rivers, and lived by agriculture and cattle-raising. Finds of horse skeletons in graves suggest

1914-524: The Rhine, including the Sicambri and the Ubii, were forced by Tiberius to settle in the northeast of Gaul. Romanized provinces with tribal names developed from the merging of incoming groups with people who had lived there before Caesar. This is a likely origin of both the Tungri and the other tribal groups of Germania Inferior. The Roman civitas of the Tungri is smaller than the area which Caesar ascribed to

1972-418: The Romans' lost two legions, while two others (I Germanica and XVI Gallica) were controlled by the rebels. The rebellion became a real threat to the Empire when the conflict escalated to northern Gaul and Germania. The Roman army retaliated and invaded the insula Batavorum . A bridge was built over the river Nabalia , where the warring parties approached each other on both sides to negotiate peace. The narrative

2030-630: The Saxons. Constantius Gallus added inhabitants of Batavia to his legions, "of whose discipline we still make use." It has been assumed they merged with the Salii shortly before or after and, after having been expelled by another tribe (it has been proposed this was the Chamavi ), shared their subsequent migration to Toxandria . In the Late Roman army there was a unit called Batavi . The name of

2088-520: The Sicambri, to the northeast, and become part of Germania Inferior , which still later evolved into Germania Secunda . In other directions, their neighbours in Roman times were the Belgic Nervii on the west and the Remi and Treveri to the south, all of which were tribes who had been in those regions since before Caesar's campaign. Tacitus in his Histories notes two cohorts of Tungri in

2146-756: The Tungri but stated that the Condrusi , the Eburones , the Caeroesi and the Paemani , living in the same approximate area as the later Tungri, were "called by the common name of Germani " and had settled in Gaul already before the Cimbrian War (113-101 BCE), having come from Germany east of the Rhine. Caesar cited them as providing one collective contribution of men to the Belgic revolt against him within which

2204-564: The Tungri. Already during the campaign of Caesar, the Tencteri and Usipetes crossed the Rhine for cattle raids on the territories of the Menapii , the Eburones and the Condrusi, giving Caesar an excuse for new military intervention in the area. He pursued them back over the Rhine where they were helped by the Sicambri . Later, Caesar himself encouraged the Sicambri to cross the Rhine into

2262-446: The alliance, one of the high-ranking Batavi, Julius Paullus, to give him his Roman name, was executed by Fonteius Capito on a false charge of rebellion. His kinsman Gaius Julius Civilis was paraded in chains in Rome before Nero ; though he was acquitted by Galba , he was retained at Rome, and when he returned to his kin in the year of upheaval in the Roman Empire, 69, he headed a Batavian rebellion. He managed to capture Castra Vetera ,

2320-482: The barbarians from several sides at once and cut down many of them. (Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 60:20) It is uncertain how they were able to accomplish this feat. The late fourth century writer on Roman military affairs Vegetius mentions soldiers using reed rafts, drawn by leather leads, to transport equipment across rivers. But the sources suggest the Batavi were able to swim across rivers actually wearing full armour and weapons. This would only have been possible by

2378-426: The deity. Germania (book) The Germania , written by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus around 98 AD and originally entitled On the Origin and Situation of the Germans ( Latin : De origine et situ Germanorum ), is a historical and ethnographic work on the Germanic peoples outside the Roman Empire . The Germania begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of

Tungri - Misplaced Pages Continue

2436-480: The earlier Germani Cisrhenani , with the areas near the Rhine governed as a military frontier, and populated at least partly with soldiers and immigrants from the other side of the Rhine. The exact history of each of the populations is not known although the areas nearer to the Rhine appear to have had larger-scale immigration, and the Tungri were suspected, according to Tacitus, of having been less influenced in their makeup by that process. Smaller tribal groups such as

2494-441: The extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the ocean in front, and by the river Rhine in the rear and on either side". This view, however, is contradicted by the archeological evidence, which shows continuous habitation from at least the third century BC onward. The strategic position, to wit the high bank of the Waal offering an unimpeded view far into Germania Transrhenana (Germania Beyond

2552-419: The first onset but not tolerant of exhausting labour, tolerant of hunger and cold, but not of heat or thirst. In chapter 7, Tacitus describes their government and leadership as somewhat merit-based and egalitarian, with leadership by example rather than authority, and punishments are carried out by the priests. He mentions (chapter 8) that the opinions of women are given respect. In chapter 11, Tacitus describes

2610-434: The honour of the ancient association with the Romans, not required to pay tribute or taxes and used by the Romans only for war: "They furnished to the Empire nothing but men and arms", Tacitus remarked. Well regarded for their skills in horsemanship and swimming—for men and horses could cross the Rhine without losing formation, according to Tacitus. Dio Cassius describes this surprise tactic employed by Aulus Plautius against

2668-543: The name was only revived in 1471, inspired by the rediscovered text of Germania , to invoke the warlike qualities of the ancient Germans in a crusade against the Turks . Ever since its discovery, treatment of the text regarding the culture of the early Germanic peoples in ancient Germany remains strong, especially in German history, philology, and ethnology studies, and to a lesser degree in Scandinavian countries, as well. Beginning in 16th-century German humanism, German interest in Germanic antiquity remained acute throughout

2726-480: The ninth. In the East, it was used by the anonymous author of the Frankish Table of Nations in the early sixth century and possibly by the Emperor Maurice in his Strategikon later that century. In the ninth century, the Frankish Table was incorporated into the Historia Brittonum , which ensured a wide diffusion to at least some of the Germania 's information. Guibert of Nogent , writing his autobiography around 1115, quotes Germania . Germania survives in

2784-431: The northeast of the Tungri, near the Rhine, were the Cugerni, who are thought to be Sicambri, and then, around the area of Cologne and Bonn , the Ubii were settled. Pliny the Elder is the first writer to mention the Tungri as citizens of Roman Gallia Belgica . In his Natural History , he notes that their region... ...has a spring of great renown, which sparkles as it bursts forth with bubbles innumerable, and has

2842-434: The period of Romanticism and nationalism . A scientific angle was introduced with the development of Germanic philology by Jacob Grimm . Because of its influence on the ideologies of Pan-Germanism and Nordicism , Jewish-Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano in 1956 described Germania and the Iliad as "among the most dangerous books ever written". Christopher Krebs , a professor at Stanford University, claims in

2900-410: The river Thames at a point near where it empties into the ocean and at flood-tide forms a lake. This they easily crossed because they knew where the firm ground and the easy passages in this region were to be found; but the Romans in attempting to follow them were not so successful. However, the Germans swam across again and some others got over by a bridge a little way up-stream, after which they assailed

2958-399: The territory of the Eburones, seeking to plunder the lands of the people whose fortress he had just taken. These tribes who crossed the Rhine and became part of Roman Germania Inferior were themselves apparently heavily influenced by Gaulish culture, some using Gaulish personal names or Gaulish tribal names. Later, as the area became part of the Roman Empire , some of these tribes from over

SECTION 50

#1732766111784

3016-421: The tribal knowledge lost its grip on anthropology and mostly vanished. Modern variants of the Batavian founding myth are made more accurate by pointing out that the Batavians were one part of the ancestry of the Dutch people - together with the Frisians , Franks and Saxons – by tracing patterns of DNA . Echoes of this cultural continuity can still be found among various areas of Dutch modern culture, such as

3074-424: The use of some kind of buoyancy device: Ammianus Marcellinus mentions that the Cornuti regiment swam across a river floating on their shields "as on a canoe" (357). Since the shields were wooden, they may have provided sufficient buoyancy The Batavi were used to form the bulk of the Emperor's personal Germanic bodyguard from Augustus to Galba . They also provided a contingent for their indirect successors,

3132-407: The victor, the Tungri, used this term to refer to other peoples from the homeland east of the Rhine, which would thus come to be called " Germania ". They did this " ob metum " which could mean "to inspire fear" or "out of fear". In any case, soon other people from Germania used this term themselves. Corresponding to this, some generations earlier, Julius Caesar , on the other hand, did not mention

3190-415: The word Atuatuca meant a fortress. Under Roman occupation, a new city Aduatuca Tungrorum , modern Tongeren in the Limburg province of Belgium, became the capital city of the region. Under the Romans, the Tungri civitas was first a part of Gallia Belgica , and later split out to join the territories of the Ubii to the southeast, and the Cugerni , who are generally equated with being descended from

3248-445: Was based on tribal knowledge . Being politically and geographically inclusive, this historical vision filled the needs of Dutch nation-building and integration in the 1890–1914 era. However, a disadvantage of this historical nationalism soon became apparent. It suggested there were no strong external borders, while allowing for the fairly clear-cut internal borders that were emerging as the society polarized into three parts. After 1945,

3306-479: Was known by him to be a new term, invented when the term Germani came to be applied more widely: the term " Germania " is recent and newly in use, because those who first crossed the Rhine and expelled the Gauls, now called the Tungri, were then called Germani . Thus the name of the nation ( natio ), not the people ( gens ), gradually prevailed, so that all [east of the Rhine] came to be referred to with this artificial term Germani . According to Tacitus then, first

3364-496: Was told in great detail in Tacitus' History, book iv, although, unfortunately, the narrative breaks off abruptly at the climax. Following the uprising, Legio X Gemina was housed in a stone castra to keep an eye on the Batavians. The Batavi were still mentioned in 355 during the reign of Constantius II (317–361), when their island was already dominated by the Salii , a Frankish tribe that had sought Roman protection there in 297 after having been expelled from their own country by

#783216