Mattium was the ancient "capital" or principal settlement (Latin: "caput gentis") of the Chatti. Its exact location is unknown, though following the description of Tacitus it is generally assumed to be somewhere in the wider neighbourhood of Fritzlar in northern Hesse (Germany).
Tacitus mentions Mattium in his Annals, when he describes the Roman campaign against the Chatti under the command of Germanicus in 15 AD. According to him the Roman army destroyed the caput gentis Mattium, directly after it crossed the river Adrana (Eder). [1] [2] Aside from Tacitus' description placing Mattium north of the Eder, there is also some linguistic analysis suggesting that the names of the villages Maden and Metze and the brook Matzoff might be derived from Mattium and hence Mattium might be located in their neighbourhood. However, so far there are no archeological findings which would provide an exact location and confirm the description of Tacitus or the linguistic analysis. [3]
The Altenburg, an ancient fortified site, in the same neighbourhood, was often equated with Mattium in older literature. However, more recent research, in particular the dating of archeological artefacts from the site, has concluded that the site was already abandoned decades before the Roman troops destroyed Mattium. Therefore, the Altenburg is not considered a suitable candidate for Mattium anymore. [3] [4]
The term caput gentis being used by Tacitus may not only denote a capital in the sense of a single large fortified settlement, but it could also refer to a central place of worship. In the latter case it is conceivable that Mattium comprised a larger area consisting of various ritual sites and settlements connected to them rather than being a single central settlement. [4] [5]
Mattium is not to be confused with Mattiacum (Wiesbaden), also called Aquae Mattiacorum, which was the principal settlement of the Mattiaci. The Mattiaci were a separate tribe that lived between the Rhine river and the Taunus mountain range. Contrary to the Chatti they became incorporated into the Roman empire when the Limes Germanicus was built. [6]
The similarity between Mattiaci and Mattium and the fact that Mattiaci could be understood as "people from Mattium" has led some scholars to believe, that the Mattiaci might be related to the Chatti and had split off from them at an earlier time. [4] [6]
Maroboduus was a king of the Marcomanni, who were a Germanic Suebian people. He spent part of his youth in Rome, and returning, found his people under pressure from invasions by the Roman empire between the Rhine and Elbe. He led them into the forests of Bohemia, near to the Quadi who already lived nearby, and established a large alliance.
The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (Visurgis). They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder and Fulda regions, a district approximately corresponding to Hesse-Kassel, though probably somewhat more extensive. They settled within the region in the first century B.C. According to Tacitus, the Batavians and Cananefates of his time, tribes living within the Roman Empire, were descended from part of the Chatti, who left their homeland after an internal quarrel drove them out, to take up new lands at the mouth of the Rhine.
The Cherusci were an early Germanic people that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germany, in the area possibly near present-day Hanover, during the first centuries BC and AD. Ethnically, Pliny the Elder groups them with their neighbours, the Suebi and Chatti, as well as the Hermunduri, as Hermiones, one of the Germanic groupings said to descend from an ancestor named Mannus. They led an important war against the Roman Empire. Subsequently, they were probably absorbed into the late classical Germanic tribal groups such as the Saxons, Thuringians, Franks, Bavarians and Allemanni.
The Battle of Idistaviso, sometimes known as the First Battle of Minden or Battle of the Weser River, was fought in 16 AD between Roman legions commanded by Roman Emperor Tiberius's heir and adopted son, Germanicus, and an alliance of Germanic peoples, commanded by Arminius. The battle marked the end of a three-year series of campaigns by Germanicus in Germania.
The Eder[ˈeːdɐ] is a 177-kilometre (110 mi)-long major river in Germany that begins in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia and passes in to Hesse, where it empties into the River Fulda.
The Marsi were a small Germanic tribe settled between the Rhine, Ruhr and Lippe rivers in northwest Germany. It has been suggested that they were a part of the Sugambri who managed to stay east of the Rhine after most Sugambri had been moved from this area. Strabo describes the Marsi as an example of a Germanic tribe who were originally from the Rhine area, now the war-torn Roman frontier, but had migrated deep into Germania.
The Agri Decumates or Decumates Agri were a region of the Roman Empire's provinces of Germania Superior and Raetia; covering the Black Forest, Swabian Jura, and Franconian Jura areas between the Rhine, Main, and Danube rivers; in present southwestern Germany, including present Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Weißenburg in Bayern. The only ancient reference to the name comes from Tacitus' book Germania. However the later geographer Claudius Ptolemy does mention "the desert of the Helvetians" in this area.
The Dębczyn culture is an archeological culture in Pomerania from the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was derived from the neighboring Wielbark culture with influences from the Elbe region. The culture was superseded as the result of the later migrations of West Slavs, in particular of the Pomeranians.
After the glaciers of the Ice Age in the Early Stone Age withdrew from the area, which since about 1000 AD is called Pomerania, in what are now northern Germany and Poland, they left a tundra. First humans appeared, hunting reindeer in the summer. A climate change in 8000 BC allowed hunters and foragers of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture to continuously inhabit the area. These people became influenced by farmers of the Linear Pottery culture who settled in southern Pomerania. The hunters of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture became farmers of the Funnelbeaker culture in 3000 BC. The Havelland culture dominated in the Uckermark from 2500 to 2000 BC. In 2400 BC, the Corded Ware culture reached Pomerania and introduced the domestic horse. Both Linear Pottery and Corded Ware culture have been associated with Indo-Europeans. Except for Western Pomerania, the Funnelbeaker culture was replaced by the Globular Amphora culture a thousand years later.
A hoop crown, arched crown, or closed crown, is a crown consisting of a "band around the temples and one or two bands over the head". First used by the Carolingian dynasty, hoop crowns became increasingly popular among royal dynasties in the Late Middle Ages, and the dominant type of crown in the Modern Era.
Vestralpus was an Alemannic petty king of the Bucinobantes in the 4th century. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Julian crossed the Rhine at Mainz in 359 and concluded peace treaties with the Alemannic kings Vestralpus, Macrian, Hariobaudes, Urius, Ursicinus and Vadomarius after they had returned all Roman prisoners.
The Latin name Abnoba Mons is the name of a mountain range that was already known to ancient authors Pliny and Tacitus. The name has been traditionally, primarily associated in historical research with the Black Forest. Ptolemy used the toponym in his A.D. 150 publication, Geographia, as a mountain range lying within Germania magna (ὄρη) with its southern extent at 31° 49' and its northern extremity at 31° 52'. The geographer clearly did not restrict this name to present day Black Forest, but to an entire mountain chain.
The Elbe Germans or Elbe Germanic peoples were Germanic tribes whose settlement area, based on archaeological finds, lay either side of the Elbe estuary on both sides of the river and which extended as far as Bohemia and Moravia, clearly the result of a migration up the Elbe river from the northwest in advance of the main Migration Period until the individual groups ran into the Roman Danube Limes around 200 AD.
Hariobaudes was an Alemannic petty king in the 4th century. The Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Julian crossed the Rhine at Mainz in 359 and concluded a peace treaty with the Alemannic kings Hariobaud, Macrian, Urius, Ursicinus, Vadomarius and Vestralpus after they agreed to return all prisoners.
Urius was an Alemannic petty king in the 4th century. The Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Julian crossed the Rhine at Mainz in 359 and concluded a peace treaty with the Alemannic kings Urius, Hariobaudes, Macrian, Vadomarius, Ursicinus and Vestralpus.
Hunimund was a leader - variously described by Jordanes as dux and as rex - of the Suebi.
Julius Segimundus was a nobleman of the Germanic Cherusci.
Mallovendus was a chieftain of the Germanic Marsi.
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Suomarius was an Alemannic petty king in the 4th century.