Remi

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Gold stater of the Remi.

The Remi (

Roman period. Their territory roughly corresponded the modern Marne and Ardennes and parts of the Aisne and Meuse departments.[1]

Name

They are mentioned as Remi by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Pliny (1st c. AD),[2] Rhē̃moi (Ῥη̃μοι; var. Ῥημοὶ) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD) and Ptolemy (2nd c. AD),[3] Remos by Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD),[4] Rhēmō̃n (Ῥημω̃ν) and Rhēmoĩs (Ῥημοι̃ς) by Cassius Dio (3rd c. AD),[5] and as Nemorum in the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD).[6][7]

The

Proto-Indo-European *prei-mos ('first, leader'; cf. Latin prīmus 'furthest in front, foremost').[8][9][10]

The city of Reims, attested ca. 400 AD as civitate Remorum (Rems in 1284), is named after the Belgic tribe.[11]

Geography

Territory

Gallic civitates at the time of Julius Caesar

The Remi dwelled in the Aisne, Vesle and Suippe valleys, with a heavy concentration in the middle Aisne valley.[1] Their territory was located south of the Suessiones.[12] As they were encircled by forests, however, the lands under their control nowhere bordered on neighbouring tribes.[1]

Settlements

La Tène period

Before the Roman conquest (57 BC), the villages of the Remi were located along natural pathways and terrestrial cross-ways such as at Nizy-le-Comte, Thugny-Trugny, or Acy-Romance, which occupied from the early 2nd century BC up until the 1st century AD.[13] The rural areas of the Aisne valley were densely occupied and structured around trade relations with Mediterranean merchants, with large farms held by local aristocrats and bordered by numerous hamlets.[14]

In the late 2nd–early 1st century BC, a few oppida were erected at Bibrax (Vieux Laon, Saint-Thomas), Nandin (Château-Porcien), Moulin à Vent (Voncq), La Cheppe, and Vieux Reims (Condé-sur-Suippe/Variscourt).[14]

Roman period

At the beginning of the Roman period, the Remi left the villages and oppida that were in unfavourable positions within the emerging economic system of the Empire. For instance, the oppidum of Saint-Thomas (Bibrax) was abandoned in the middle of the 1st century BC, whereas Le Moulin à Vent, which bordered the trade route between Reims and Trier, developed into the town of Voncq, attested as Vongo vicus in the 3rd c. AD.[15]

Gaulish word duron ('gates' > 'enclosed town, market town').[17]

Secondary agglomerations of the Roman period are also known at Vervins, Chaourse, Nizy-le-Comte, Laon or Coucy-les-Eppes. Nizy-le-Comte, occupied at least until the end of the 4th century AD, probably reached around 80 hectares at its height.[18]

History

La Tène period

According to archaeologist

Caesar's conquest of the region.[19]

Remi bronze coin bearing the inscription REMO. 1st c. BC.

By the mid-1st century BC, the Remi already possessed a structured economic system with monetary issuance, since they had prospered from their local agricultural production and from trade between northern Gaul and the Mediterranean area.[20] After a period of regression in the 4th–3rd century, trade relations eventually recovered and gained in intensity during the second part of the 2nd century. A local landed nobility founded on agricultural and mining possessions subsequently emerged in the Aisne valley, and the Remi elite came to be influenced by the Latin culture through contacts with Roman merchants.[21] Wine, in particular, was imported in large quantity from southern Europe by the local Remi elite before the Roman conquest.[14]

Gallic Wars

During the

Iccius and Andecombogius, the Remi allied themselves with Julius Caesar
:

The Remi, the Belgic tribe nearest to Gaul, sent as deputies to him Iccius and Andecumborius, the first men of the community, to tell him that they surrendered themselves and all their stuff to the protection and power of Rome; that they had neither taken part with the rest of the Belgae, nor conspired against Rome; and that they were ready to give hostages, to do his commands, to receive him in their towns, and to assist him with corn and everything else. All the rest of the Belgae, they said, were under arms, and the Germans dwelling on the hither side of the Rhine had joined with them; and the infatuation of them all was so great that the Remi had not been able to dissuade even the Suessiones from taking part with them, though these were their own brethren and kinsfolk, observing the same law and ordinances, and sharing one government, one ruler with themselves.

— Caesar 1917, p. 93 = Bello Gallico, 2.3.

They maintained their loyalty to Rome throughout the entire war, and were one of the few Gallic polities not to join in the rebellion of Vercingetorix.[citation needed]

When the Belgae besieged the oppidum of

Caesar sent Numidian, Cretan and Balearic soldiers to avoid the seizure of the stronghold.[22]

Roman period

Portrait of a Remi citizen. 1st c. AD.

A

founding myth preserved or invented by Flodoard of Reims (d. 966) makes Remus, brother of Romulus, the eponymous founder of the Remi, having escaped their fraternal rivalry instead of dying in Latium.[23]

Political organization

Until the

Caesar entered Gallia Belgica in 57 BC, the Remi asked the protection of the Romans, thus gaining independence from a possibly asymmetrical relationship.[12][22]

Economy

In the second part of the 2nd century BC, as the result of early trade contacts with the Mediterranean world, and encouraged by a political will to build economic relations with Rome, the Remi were the first people to issue coins in Gallia Belgica.[24] Their oppida were responsible for the minting of coins in the late 2nd and early 1st centuries BC.[20]

Religion

Two pre-Roman sanctuaries located at La Soragne (Bâalons-Bouvellemont) and Flavier (Mouzon) attest the religious offering of miniature weapons. In another sanctuary (Nepellier, in Nanteuil-sur-Aisne) were found Celtic sun crosses, along with destroyed weapons, coins, and human remains.[14] Nepellier dates back to 250–200 BC and continued to be used during the Roman period until its destruction in Late Antiquity.[25]

During the Roman period,

Imperial numen.[27] Another inscription from Nizy-le-Comte was dedicated to Apollo.[27]

See also

  • List of peoples of Gaul
  • List of Celtic tribes

References

  1. ^ a b c Schön 2006.
  2. ^ Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 2:3, passim; Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:106.
  3. ^ Strabo. Geōgraphiká, 4:3:5; Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:9:6.
  4. ^ Tacitus. Historiae, 4:68.
  5. ^ Cassius Dio. Rhōmaïkḕ Historía, 39:1, 40:11.
  6. ^ Notitia Dignitatum, oc 11:34.
  7. ^ Falileyev 2010, s.v. Remi.
  8. ^ Lambert 1994, p. 34.
  9. ^ Delamarre 2003, p. 257.
  10. ^ Busse 2006, p. 199.
  11. ^ Nègre 1990, p. 156.
  12. ^ a b Wightman 1985, p. 27.
  13. ^ Lambot & Casagrande 1996, pp. 16, 27.
  14. ^ a b c d Lambot & Casagrande 1996, p. 16.
  15. ^ Lambot & Casagrande 1996, pp. 21, 25–26.
  16. ^ Neiss et al. 2015, p. 171.
  17. ^ Delamarre 2003, p. 156.
  18. ^ Pichon 2002, p. 82.
  19. ^ a b Pichon 2002, p. 74.
  20. ^ a b Lambot & Casagrande 1996, p. 17.
  21. ^ Lambot & Casagrande 1996, p. 13.
  22. ^ a b Pichon 2002, p. 78.
  23. ^ Michel Sot, “Les temps mythiques: les origines païennes et chrétiennes de Reims. I. Les origines païennes,” in Un historien et son Église au Xe siècle: Flodoard de Reims ([Paris]: Fayard, 1993).
  24. ^ Lambot & Casagrande 1996, pp. 13, 16.
  25. ^ Lambot & Casagrande 1996, p. 22.
  26. ^ Derks 1998, p. 97.
  27. ^ a b c Pichon 2002, p. 84.

Primary sources

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Bibliography

Further reading

  • Hornung, Sabine (2016). "Die Remer – eine politische Erfolgsgeschichte am Rande der Gallia Belgica". Siedlung und Bevölkerung in Ostgallien zwischen Gallischem Krieg und der Festigung der Römischen Herrschaft. Eine Studie auf Basis landschaftsarchäologischer Forschungen im Umfeld des Oppidums "Hunnenring" von Otzenhausen (Lkr. St. Wendel) (in German). Philipp von Zabern. pp. 347–374.
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