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Germania Inferior Lower Germania | |||||||
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Province of the Roman Empire | |||||||
83–475 | |||||||
The province of Germania Inferior within the Roman Empire, c. 117 | |||||||
Capital | Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (CCAA) | ||||||
Historical era | Antiquity | ||||||
• Established after the Gallic wars | 83 | ||||||
260–274 | |||||||
• Francia | 475 | ||||||
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Today part of | Netherlands Belgium Germany Luxembourg |
Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the 4th century AD, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (modern-day Cologne).
According to Ptolemy (2.9), Germania Inferior included the Rhine from its mouth up to the mouth of the Obringa, a river identified with either the Aar or the Moselle. [1] The territory included modern-day Luxembourg, the southern Netherlands, part of Belgium, and part of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, west of the Rhine.
The principal settlements of the province were Castra Vetera and Colonia Ulpia Traiana (both near Xanten), Coriovallum (Heerlen), Albaniana (Alphen aan den Rijn), Lugdunum Batavorum (Katwijk), Forum Hadriani (Voorburg), Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum (Nijmegen), Traiectum (Utrecht), Atuatuca Tungrorum (Tongeren), Bona (Bonn), and Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne), the capital of Germania Inferior.
The first confrontations between a Roman army and the peoples of Germania Inferior occurred during Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. Caesar invaded the region in 57 BC and in the next three years annihilated several tribes, including the Eburones and the Menapii, whom Caesar called "Germanic" but who probably were Celtic or at least mixed Celtic-Germanic. Germanic influence (mainly through the Tungri) increased during Roman times, leading to the assimilation of all Celtic peoples in the area. In fact, Germania Inferior had Roman settlements since around 50 BC and was at first part of Gallia Belgica.
It was only under Domitian (r. AD 81–96) that new territories were acquired, between the high valleys of the Rhine and the Danube, following the campaigns conducted by his generals in AD 83–85, which led to the creation of two new imperial provinces, lower and upper Germany. [2] Although this region had been occupied since the reign of Augustus, it wasn't formally established as a Roman province until around AD 85, with its capital at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (modern-day Cologne). [3] It later became an imperial province. It lay north of Germania Superior; these two together made up Lesser Germania. The adjective Inferior refers to its downstream position.
The army of Germania Inferior, typically shown on inscriptions as EX.GER.INF. (Exercitus Germaniae Inferioris), included several legions at various times: of these, Legions I Minervia and XXX Ulpia Victrix were the most permanent. The Roman Navy's Classis Germanica (Germanic fleet), charged with patrolling the Rhine and the North Sea coast, were based at Castra Vetera and later at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis.
As attested in the early 5th century document Notitia Dignitatum , the province was renamed Germania Secunda (Germania II) in the 4th century. It was administered by a consularis and formed part of the Diocese of Gaul. Up to the end of Roman control, it was an intensely garrisoned province that was inhabited by Romans and Ripuarian Franks in the 5th century. Its capital remained at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, which also became the seat of a Christian bishopric, which was in charge of an ecclesiastical province that survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
After the final abandonment of the province it became the core of the Frankish Kingdom.
The Batavi 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 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, refers to the region's fertility, today known as the fruitbasket of the Netherlands.
Limes is a term used primarily for the Germanic border defence or delimiting system of Ancient Rome marking the borders of the Roman Empire. The term has been extended in modern times to refer to the frontier defences in other parts of the empire, such as in the east and in Africa.
Germania, also more specifically called Magna Germania, Germania Libera, or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, was a historical region in north-central Europe during the Roman era, which was associated by Roman authors with the Germanic peoples. According to Roman geographers, this region stretched roughly from the Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east, and to the Upper Danube in the south, and the known parts of southern Scandinavia in the north. Archaeologically, these people correspond roughly to the Roman Iron Age of those regions.
The Ubii were a Germanic tribe first encountered dwelling on the east bank of the Rhine in the time of Julius Caesar, who formed an alliance with them in 55 BC in order to launch attacks across the river. They were transported in 39 BC by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa to the west bank, apparently at their own request, as they feared the incursions of their neighbors, the Chatti.
The Revolt of the Batavi took place in the Roman province of Germania Inferior between AD 69 and 70. It was an uprising against the Roman Empire started by the Batavi, a small but militarily powerful Germanic tribe that inhabited Batavia, on the delta of the river Rhine. They were soon joined by the Celtic tribes from Gallia Belgica and some Germanic tribes.
Germania Superior was an imperial province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of today's western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany. Important cities were Besançon (Vesontio), Strasbourg (Argentoratum), Wiesbaden, and Germania Superior's capital, Mainz (Mogontiacum). It comprised the Middle Rhine, bordering on the Limes Germanicus, and on the Alpine province of Raetia to the south-east. Although it had been occupied militarily since the reign of Augustus, Germania Superior was not made into an official province until c. 85 AD.
Gallia Belgica was a province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and Germany.
Veleda was seeress of the Bructeri, a Germanic people who achieved some prominence during the Batavian rebellion of AD 69–70, headed by the Romanized Batavian chieftain Gaius Julius Civilis, when she correctly predicted the initial successes of the rebels against Roman legions.
Xanten is a town in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the district of Wesel.
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.
Colonia Ulpia Traiana was a colonia in the Roman province of Germania inferior, founded by emperor Trajan. It was located in the area of today's Xanten.
The Roman-Germanic Museum is an archaeological museum in Cologne, Germany. It has a large collection of Roman artifacts from the Roman settlement of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, on which modern Cologne is built. The museum protects the original site of a Roman town villa, from which a large Dionysus mosaic remains in its original place in the basement, and the related Roman Road just outside. In this respect the museum is an archaeological site.
Vetera was the name of the location of two successive Roman legionary camps in the province of Germania Inferior near present-day Xanten on the Lower Rhine. The legionary camps of Vetera were part of the Lower Germanic Limes and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.
Caesar's bridges across the Rhine, the first two bridges on record to cross the Rhine river, were built by Julius Caesar and his legionaries during the Gallic War in 55 BC and 53 BC. Strategically successful, they are also considered masterpieces of military engineering.
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium was the Roman colony in the Rhineland from which the city of Cologne, now in Germany, developed.
The Roman Forum of Lahnau-Waldgirmes is a fortified Roman trading place, located at the edge of the modern village Waldgirmes, part of Lahnau on the Lahn, Hesse, Germany. The site has the oldest known stone buildings in Magna Germania.
For around 450 years, from around 55 BC to around 410 AD, the southern part of the Netherlands was integrated into the Roman Empire. During this time the Romans in the Netherlands had an enormous influence on the lives and culture of the people who lived in the Netherlands at the time and (indirectly) on the generations that followed.
The Cugerni were a Germanic tribal grouping with a particular territory within the Roman province of Germania Inferior, which later became Germania Secunda. More precisely they lived near modern Xanten, and the old Castra Vetera, on the Rhine. This part of Germania Secunda was called the Civitas or Colonia Traiana, and it was also inhabited by the Betasii.
The Germani cisrhenani, or "Left bank Germani", were a group of Germanic peoples who lived west of the Lower Rhine at the time of the Gallic Wars in the mid-1st century BC.
The Ara Ubiorum was a Roman sanctuary in the Oppidum Ubiorum. It was erected in the last decade of the 1st century BC and was dedicated to the goddess Roma and the Roman emperor. It was a central location for the Germans conquered by Augustus to demonstrate their loyalty to Rome and the Emperor through offerings. Like the Ara trium Galliarum, the altar was the site of the concilium provinciae for the planned province of Germania Magna. The priests who serviced the altar were drawn from high-ranking Germans.
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