A map of Gaul in the 1st century BC, showing the locations of the Celtic tribes. The localisation of both the Tulingi and the Latobrigi north of the Upper Rhine is mostly arbitrary.
The Tulingi were a small tribe closely allied to the CelticHelvetii in the time of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul. Their location is unknown; their language and descent are uncertain. From their close cooperation with the Helvetii it can be deduced that they were probably neighbours of the latter. At the Battle of Bibracte in 58 BCE, they were, with the Boii and a few other smaller tribes, allies of the Helvetii against the Roman legions of Caesar.[1]
Ancient source material on the Tulingi is scarce. The only reference is Caesar, who relates that with the Helvetii and the others they burned their homes and became part of the column of migrants seeking a new country in southern France.[2] The column was defeated by Julius Caesar in the opening campaign of the Gallic Wars, 58 BC. They were then returned to their homes, which they were compelled to rebuild. According to captured records in the Helvetian camp, the number of Tulingi, including fighting men, old men, women and children, had been 36,000, a small fraction of the total of 368,000, of which only 110,000 remained to return home after their surrender.[3]
The main possibility as to their identity is that they were Celtic. As the "-ing-" in Tulingi is also a frequently used suffix in forming Germanic tribal names,[4] a second theory, that they were Germanic, developed. This was championed by Rudolf Much and other authors who proposed the now-discredited theory of "Alpine Germanic" tribes in the late Iron Age, to whom the Tulingi were counted.[5] So far no Germanic etymology for the name has gained wider acceptance.[6]
The ancient Boii had been displaced from the Danube by the Germanics. Those in Gaul were a remnant, as the Tulingi may well have been. If they were, they might logically be found across the Rhine, in Germania.[7] Why they did not ally with the Germanics, whom the Celts feared and disliked, remains unexplained. They appear briefly in Orosius' mention of the Helvetian campaign, manifestly based on Caesar. However, Orosius uses Latobrigi instead of Latovici. The "-brigi" would certainly identify a tribe with a Celtic name, and if they were Celtic, perhaps so were the Tulingi.
It is possible that the tribe appears in an independent later source contradicting the Germanic theory. About 360 AD Rufus Festus Avienus in Ora Maritima mentions a number of peoples living on the upper Rhône in Valais. Among them were the Tylangii, who have been tentatively identified as the descendants of Caesar's Tulingi. They were not located across the Rhine, but to the south of Lake Geneva. Moreover, Avienus considers them Ligurians. Some of the other names mentioned are Daliterni, Clahilci, neither of which is noticeably Germanic.[8]
Notes
↑ Cowan, Ross; Hook, Adam (2007). Roman Battle Tactics 109BC-AD313. Oxford: Osprey. p.25.
↑ The name is mentioned critically by Wolfgang Meid as "the earliest but very uncertain" instance of an ethnonymic formation -inga-/-unga- in Meid, Wolfgang (1967). Germanische Sprachwissenschaft vol. 3 - Wortbildungslehre. Berlin: de Gruyter & Co. p.200.
↑ Schmeja, Hans (1968). Der Mythos von den Alpengermanen. Vienna.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
The Boii were a Celtic tribe of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul, Pannonia, present-day Bavaria, in and around present-day Bohemia, parts of present-day Slovakia and Poland, and Gallia Narbonensis.
The Helvetii, anglicized as Helvetians, were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius Caesar, the Helvetians were divided into four subgroups or pagi. Of these, Caesar names only the Verbigeni and the Tigurini, while Posidonius mentions the Tigurini and the Tougeni (Τωυγενοί). They feature prominently in the Commentaries on the Gallic War, with their failed migration attempt to southwestern Gaul serving as a catalyst for Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
Gaul was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of 494,000 km2 (191,000 sq mi). According to Julius Caesar, who took control of the region on behalf of the Roman Republic, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania.
The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul. Gallic, Germanic, and Brittonic tribes fought to defend their homelands against the Roman campaign. The Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul. Though the various collective Gallic armies were as strong as the Roman forces, the Gallic tribes' internal divisions eased victory for Caesar. Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls under a single banner came too late. Caesar portrayed the invasion as being a preemptive and defensive action, but historians agree that he fought the wars primarily to boost his political career and to pay off his debts. Still, Gaul was of significant military importance to the Romans. Native tribes in the region, both Gallic and Germanic, had attacked Rome several times. Conquering Gaul allowed Rome to secure the natural border of the river Rhine.
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Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani in defeating their rivals, the Aedui. They then settled in large numbers into conquered Gallic territory, in the Alsace region. They were defeated, however, in the Battle of Vosges and driven back over the Rhine in 58 BC by Julius Caesar.
The Trēverī were a Germanic or Celtic tribe of the Belgae group who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle in modern day Germany from around 150 BCE, if not earlier, until their displacement by the Franks. Their domain lay within the southern fringes of the Silva Arduenna, a part of the vast Silva Carbonaria, in what are now Luxembourg, southeastern Belgium and western Germany; its centre was the city of Trier, to which the Treveri give their name. Celtic in language, according to Tacitus they claimed Germanic descent. They contained both Gallic and Germanic influences.
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The Volcae were a Gallic tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedonia c. 270 BC and fought the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC. Tribes known by the name Volcae were found simultaneously in southern Gaul, Moravia, the Ebro valley of the Iberian Peninsula, and Galatia in Anatolia. The Volcae appear to have been part of the late La Tène material culture, and a Celtic identity has been attributed to the Volcae, based on mentions in Greek and Latin sources as well as onomastic evidence. Driven by highly mobile groups operating outside the tribal system and comprising diverse elements, the Volcae were one of the new ethnic entities formed during the Celtic military expansion at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. Collecting in the famous excursion into the Balkans, ostensibly, from the Greek point of view, to raid Delphi, a branch of the Volcae split from the main group on the way into the Balkans and joined two other tribes, the Tolistobogii and the Trocmi, to settle in central Anatolia and establish a new identity as the Galatians.
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The Vangiones appear first in history as an ancient Germanic tribe of unknown provenance. They threw in their lot with Ariovistus in his bid of 58 BC to invade Gaul through the Doubs river valley and lost to Julius Caesar in a battle probably near Belfort. After some Celts evacuated the region in fear of the Suebi, the Vangiones, who had made a Roman peace, were allowed to settle among the Mediomatrici in northern Alsace.. They gradually assumed control of the Celtic city of Burbetomagus, later Worms.
The Battle of the Arar was fought between the migrating tribes of the Helvetii and six Roman legions under the command of Gaius Julius Caesar in 58 BC. It was the first major battle of the Gallic Wars and ended in a tactical victory for the outnumbered Roman army.
The Sequani were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the upper river basin of the Arar river (Saône), the valley of the Doubs and the Jura Mountains during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
The Condrusi were an ancient Belgic-Germanic tribe dwelling in what is now eastern Belgium during the Gallic Wars and the Roman period. Their ethnic identity remains uncertain. Caesar described them as part of the Germani Cisrhenani, but their tribal name is probably of Celtic origin. Like other Germani Cisrhenani tribes, it is possible that their old Germanic endonym came to be abandoned after a tribal reorganization, that they received their names from their Celtic neighbours, or else that they were fully or partially assimilated into Celtic culture at the time of the Roman invasion of the region in 57 BC.
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Gorgobina was a Celtic oppidum on the territory of the Aedui tribe. After the defeat of the Helvetii in 58 BC at nearby Bibracte, the Helvetians' Boii allies settled there. Whether this really was an act of clemency on Julius Caesar's part may be disputed. With the Aedui being allies of Rome, Vercingetorix besieged Gorgobina in the course of his campaign:
Hac re cognita Vercingetorix rursus in Bituriges exercitum reducit atque inde profectus Gorgobinam, Boiorum oppidum, quos ibi Helvetico proelio victos Caesar collocaverat Haeduisque attribuerat, oppugnare instituit.
(Translation:) With this in mind, Vercingetorix led his army back to the territory of the Bituriges and advanced from there to Gorgobina, the oppidum of the Boii – whom, defeated in the battle of the Helvetians, Caesar had installed there and assigned to the Aedui –, and laid siege to it.
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