Menapii

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Reconstruction of a Menapian dwelling at Destelbergen.

The Menapii were a

Roman period
.

History

The Menapii were persistent opponents of

expedition to Britain, he sent two of his legates and the majority of his army to the territories of the Menapii and Morini to keep them under control.[5] Once again, they retired to the woods, and the Romans burned their crops and settlements.[6] The Menapii joined the revolt led by Ambiorix in 54 BC. Caesar says that they, alone of all the tribes of Gaul, had never sent ambassadors to him to discuss terms of peace, and had ties of hospitality with Ambiorix. For that reason he decided to lead five legions against them. A renewed campaign of devastation finally forced them to submit, and Caesar placed his ally Commius of the Atrebates in control of them.[7]

A

Batavia.[9] A legion called the Menapii Seniores is mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum, a 5th-century register of Roman government positions and military commands.[10]

Name

Attestations

They are mentioned as Menapii by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Orosius (early 5th c. AD),[11] Menápioi (Μενάπιοι; var. Μονάπιοι, Μενάσπιοι) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD) and Ptolemy (2nd c. AD),[12] as Menapi by Pliny (1st c. AD) and the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD),[13] and under the accusative forms Menapios by Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD) and Menapíous (Μεναπίους) by Cassius Dio (3rd c. AD).[14][15]

Etymology

The

OCo. menit), or from the root *men- ('think, remember'; cf. OIr. muinithir 'think', Welsh mynnu 'wish').[18][15]

The city of Cassel, attested on Peutinger's Tabula as Castellum Menapiorum (Cassello in 840–75, Cassel in 1110), is indirectly named after the tribe.[19][15]

Geography

Territory

According to descriptions in such authors as

Waal river
in the time of Caesar.

To the north and east of the Menapii lay the

Toxandri
, in a position apparently on the northern edge of Gaul. It is known that the Toxandri were associated with the civitates of both the Nervii and the Tungri, so they presumably had a presence in both.

While in Pliny the Menapii do not stretch beyond the

Geographia, situated "above" the Nervii, and near the Meuse river.[25]

While these authors make it clear that the Menapii still lay north of the Nervii in Roman times, it is not clear if they still bordered directly upon the former territory of the

Toxandrians, who apparently lived in the north of the lands of the Nervii and Tungri.[23]

South of the Menapii were the Atrebates in Artois, and south-west along the coast were the Morini. The boundary with the Morini in classical times appears to have been the river Aa.[26]

In the later Roman empire, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites reports that "Cassel was superseded as capital of the Menapii by Tournai after Gaul was reorganized under Diocletian and Constantine the Great. The civitas Menapiorum became the civitas Turnencensium."[27] By medieval times, when these Roman districts evolved into medieval Roman Catholic dioceses, Cassel had in fact become part of the diocese of Thérouanne, which had been the civitas of the Morini.[26]

Settlements

Their

Diocese of Thérouanne. Cassel was therefore in the southern extreme of the Menapii lands. A pattern of placing Roman tribal capitals in the south is also found in the neighbouring Belgian tribal states, of the Nervii and Tungri. The positions of such Roman tribal capitals frequently didn't correspond to the centre of a tribe's territory in pre-Roman political geography.[28]
Similarly, in those neighbouring regions, the centre of Roman civilization was typically moved further south, and on to a major river, in late Roman times, after the area was threatened by Frankish tribes from outside the empire.

Economy

The economic activity of the Menapii was primally extraction of wool from sheeps, and the fabrication of primitive cloths, and these were perfected while the Roman Reign in the Region. These cloths were one of the most rare things in terms of goods, because of the geographical location where they were made. Besides, these cloths were exported to Italy and other regions through the Rhine.[29]

References

  1. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 2.4
  2. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 3.9
  3. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 3.28–29
  4. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 4.4
  5. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 4.22
  6. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 4.38
  7. ^ Julius Caesar, Commentaries on the Gallic War 6.2–6
  8. ^ Cohors Primae Menapiorum at Roman-Britain.co.uk
  9. ^ Aurelius Victor, Liber de Caesaribus 39.20
  10. ^ Notitia Dignitatum, West, 5
  11. ^ Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico. 2:4, passim; Orosius. Historiae Adversus Paganos, 8:3, 35, 6:7.
  12. ^ Strabo. Geōgraphiká, 4:3:4; Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:9:5.
  13. ^ Pliny. Naturalis Historia,, 4:106; Notitia Dignitatum, oc 5:75, 7:83.
  14. ^ Tacitus. Historiae, 4:28; Cassius Dio. Historia Romana, 39:44.
  15. ^ a b c Falileyev 2010, s.v. Menapii and Castellum Menapiorum.
  16. ^ Busse 2006, p. 199.
  17. ^ Sims-Williams 2007, pp. 329–330.
  18. ^ Isaac, Graham, "Place-Names in Ptolemy's Geography : An Electronic Data Base with Etymological Analysis of Celtic Name Elements". CD-ROM. 2004, CMCS Publications, Aberystwyth.
  19. ^ Nègre 1990, p. 389.
  20. ^ Archaeologist Nico Roymans has announced in 2015 that convincing evidence has been found that the fighting reported by Caesar at the confluence of the Rhine and Maas was in fact in the confluence of Waal, a branch of the Rhine and not the Rhine itself, and the Maas/Meuse, near Kessel. See for example http://www.nationalgeographic.nl/artikel/genocidaire-slachting-onder-leiding-van-julius-caesar-bij-kessel
  21. ^ Plin. Nat. 4.29
  22. ^ Plin. Nat. 4.31
  23. ^
    ISBN 9780520052970
    , pages 54 and 63.
  24. Geographica 4:3.4
  25. Geographia 2.8
  26. ^
    ISBN 9782757400852
  27. ^ "Cassel", The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites
  28. ^ Wightman, Edith (1985), Gallia Belgica, p. 75
  29. ^ Pirenne, Henri (1947). HISTORIA ECONOMICA Y SOCIAL DE LA EDAD MEDIA (in Spanish) (4th ed.). Mexico: Salvador Echavarria. p. 43.

Bibliography

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