The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis by Rembrandt van Rijn

The Batavians (Latin Batavi)^[1] were a Germanic tribe, originally part of the Chatti, reported by Tacitus to have lived around the Rhine delta, in the area that is currently the Netherlands, "an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the ocean in front, and by the river Rhine in the rear and on either side" (Tacitus, Historiae iv). Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15 1606 &ndash October 4 1669 was a Dutch painter and etcher. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The Germanic peoples are a historical group of Indo-European -speaking peoples originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser. Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (ca 56 &ndash ca 117 was a senator and a Historian of the Roman Empire. The Rhine (Rhein Rijn Rhin Reno Rain Rhenus is one of the longest and most important Rivers in Europe at 1320 kilometres (820 mi with an average discharge The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands This led to the Latin name of Batavia for the area. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The same name is used for several military units, originally raised among the Batavi. The tribal name, probably a derivation from batawjō ("good island", from Germanic bat- "good, excellent" and awjō "island, land near water"), refers to the region's fertility, today known as the fruitbasket of the Netherlands (the Betuwe). The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Betuwe is an area in the Netherlands in the province of Gelderland.

Finds of wooden tablets show they were literate.

The Batavian myth

In the 16th-century invention of a suitably antique origin myth for the Dutch people that would be expressive of their self-identification as separate from their neighbors in the national struggle with Spain of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence, the Batavians came to be regarded as their eponymous ancestors. A creation myth is a supernatural mytho-[[religion religious]] story or explanation that describes the beginnings of humanity, Earth, life, and The Dutch people ( Dutch:) are the dominant Ethnic group of the Netherlands. The Dutch Revolt, Eighty Years' War or the Revolt of the Netherlands (1568—1648 was the revolt of the Seventeen Provinces in the Low Countries ^[2] The mix of fancy and fact in the Cronyke van Hollandt, Zeelandt ende Vriesland (called the Divisiekronike), first published in 1517, brought the spare remarks in Tacitus' newly-rediscovered Germania to a popular public; it was being reprinted as late as 1802. ^[3] Contemporary Dutch virtues of independence, fortitude and industry were rendered fully recognizable in more scholarly history represented in Hugo Grotius' Liber de Antiquitate Republicae Batavicorum (1610). Hugo Grotius or Huig de Groot, or Hugo de Groot; ( Delft, 10 April 1583 Rostock, 28 August 1645 The myth was perpetuated by Romeyn de Hooghe's Spiegel van Staat der Vereenigden Nederlanden ("Mirror of the State of the United Netherlands", 1706), which also ran to many editions, and it was revived in the atmosphere of Romantic nationalism in the late eighteenth-century reforms that saw a short-lived Batavian Republic and, in the colony of the Dutch East Indies, a capital (now Jakarta) that was named Batavia. Romantic nationalism (also National Romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of Nationalism in which the state derives The Batavian Republic (Bataafse Republiek was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. See http//enwikipediaorg/wiki/WikipediaFootnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the tags and the template below Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the Capital and largest city of Indonesia. Modern variants of the Batavian founding myth are made more credible by pointing out that the Batavians were only part of the ancestry of the Dutch people, together with the Frisians, Franks and Saxons, and by tracing patterns of DNA. The Frisians are an ethnic group of Germanic people living in coastal parts of The Netherlands and Germany. The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group The Saxons or Saxon people were a Confederation of Old Germanic tribes. Echoes of this supposed cultural continuity may still be found in popularisations of the history that follows.

Location

The Batavians were mentioned by Julius Caesar in his commentary Commentarii de Bello Gallico, as living on an island formed by the Rhine River after it splits, one arm being the Waal the other the Lower Rhine/Old Rhine. Commentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar 's third-person account of his nine years of war in Gaul. The Rhine (Rhein Rijn Rhin Reno Rain Rhenus is one of the longest and most important Rivers in Europe at 1320 kilometres (820 mi with an average discharge WAAL ("The Whale" is a Classic rock radio station broadcasting at 99 Nederrijn ("Lower Rhine" is the name of the Dutch part of River Rhine from the confluence at the town of Angeren of the cut-off Rhine bend of For the Oude Rijn branch in Gelderland Province see Oude Rijn (Gelderland. The strategic position, to wit the high bank of the Waal-- which offered an unimpeded view far into Germania Transrhenanum (Germania Beyond the Rhine)--was recognized first by Drusus, who built a massive fortress (castra) and a headquarters (praetorium) in imperial style. WAAL ("The Whale" is a Classic rock radio station broadcasting at 99 The latter was in use until the Batavian revolt.

Archeological evidence suggests they lived in small villages, composed of 6 to 12 houses in the very fertile lands between the rivers, and lived by agriculture and cattle-raising . Finds of horse skeletons in graves suggest a strong equestrian preoccupation. On the south bank of the Waal (in what is now Nijmegen) a Roman administrative center was built, called Oppidum Batavorum. An Oppidum was a fortified warehouse, where a tribe's treasures were stored and guarded. Oppidum (plural oppida) is a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of Ancient Rome. This centre was razed during the Batavian Revolt.

The Batavi (the name is believed to derive from West Germanic beter (="better", i. e. "superior men") moved into the Betuwe in the late 1st century BC. Betuwe is an area in the Netherlands in the province of Gelderland. The previous inhabitants of the area were Celtic-speaking Gauls, as evidenced by the two Latinised Celtic names for their chief town: Batavodurum and Noviomagus (Nijmegen, Neth). Nijmegen (ˈnɛɪmeɣən) (obsolete spellings Nijmwegen Nymegen Nieumeghen &mdash Nimwegen in local dialect and in German, Nimègue in French ^[4] It is unclear whether the existing inhabitants were simply subjugated with the Batavi forming a ruling elite, or the existing inhabitants simply displaced. For this reason it is also uncertain whether the Batavi remained Germanic-speaking or adopted the Belgic Gallic tongue of the indigenes.

Military units

Funerary stela of one of Nero's Corporis Custodes (imperial bodyguard). Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( December 15, 37 – June 9, 68) born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called The bodyguard, Indus, was of the Batavian tribe.

The first Batavian commander we know of is named Chariovalda, who lead a charge across the Visurgin (Weser) against the Cherusci lead by Arminius during the campaigns of Germanicus in Germania Transrhenanum (Annales II, 11). The Weser (ˈveːzɐ is a River in north-western Germany. Formed at Hann The Cherusci (Cherusker were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the northern Rhine valley and the plains and forests of northwestern Germany, in

Tacitus (De origine et situ Germanorum XXIX) described the Batavians as the bravest of the tribes of the area, hardened in the Germanic wars, with cohorts under their own commanders transferred to Britannia. The Germania ( Latin title De Origine et situ Germanorum, English for the Origin and Situation of the Germans) written by Gaius Britannia was the term originally used by the Romans to refer first to the British Isles, and later to the island of Great Britain. They retained the honour of the ancient association with the Romans, not required to pay tribute or taxes and used by the Romans only for war: "They furnished to the Empire nothing but men and arms", Tacitus remarked. Well-regarded for their skills in horsemanship and swimming—for men and horses could cross the Rhine without losing formation, according to Tacitus. Dio Cassius describes this surprise tactic employed by Aulus Plautius against the "barbarians"—the British Celts— at the battle of the River Medway, 43:

The barbarians thought that Romans would not be able to cross it without a bridge, and consequently bivouacked in rather careless fashion on the opposite bank; but he sent across a detachment of Germanic tribesmen, who were accustomed to swim easily in full armour across the most turbulent streams. Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus ( Greek:) (c 155 or 163/164 to after 229 known in English as Cassius Dio, Dio Cassius, or Dio was Aulus Plautius was a Roman politician and general of the mid-1st century The Battle of the Medway took place in 43 on the River Medway in the lands of the Iron Age tribe of the Cantiaci, now the English [. . . ] Thence the Britons retired to the river Thames at a point near where it empties into the ocean and at flood-tide forms a lake. This they easily crossed because they knew where the firm ground and the easy passages in this region were to be found; but the Romans in attempting to follow them were not so successful. However, the Germans swam across again and some others got over by a bridge a little way up-stream, after which they assailed the barbarians from several sides at once and cut down many of them. (Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 60:20)

It is uncertain how they were able to accomplish this feat. The late 4th century writer on Roman military affairs Vegetius mentions soldiers using reed rafts, drawn by leather leads, to transport equipment across rivers. ^[5] But the sources suggest the Batavi were able to swim across rivers actually wearing full armour and weapons. This would only have been possible by the use of some kind of buoyancy device: Ammianus Marcellinus mentions that the Cornuti regiment swam across a river floating on their shields "as on a canoe" (357 AD). Amiricanus Gambilinus (325/330-after 391 was a fourth-century Roman historian. ^[6] Since the shields were wooden, they may have provided sufficient buoyancy

The Batavians also provided a contingent for the Emperor's Imperial Horse Guard.

Numerous altars and tombstones of the Batavi, dating to the 2nd century and 3rd century, have been found along Hadrian's Wall, notably at Castlecary and Carrawburgh, Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania and Austria. The 2nd century is the period from 101 to 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The 3rd century is the period from 201 to 300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. Hadrian's Wall ( Latin: perhaps Vallum Aelium, "the Aelian wall" is a stone and turf Fortification built by the Roman This article is about the village near Cumbernauld in Scotland Carrawburgh is a village in Northumberland. In Roman times it was the site of a 3½ acre (1 Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. See also Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich The Batavians were still mentioned in 355 during the reign of Constantius II (317 - 361), when their island was already dominated by the Salii, a Frankish tribe that had sought Roman protection there in 297 AD after having been expelled from their own country by the Saxons. Flavius Iulius Constantius, known in English as Constantius II ( 7 August, 317 - November 3, 361) was a Roman Emperor Salians redirects here for the eleventh-century dynasty see Salian dynasty, for Roman priests see Salii. Constantius Gallus added inhabitants of Batavia to his legions, "of whose discipline we still make use. Flavius Claudius Constantius Gallus (ca 325/326 - 354 better known as Constantius Gallus, was a member of the Constantinian dynasty and Caesar "^[7] It has been assumed they merged with the Salii shortly before or after and, after having been expelled by another tribe (it has been proposed this were the Chamavi) shared their subsequent migration to Toxandria, an ancient name for current Brabant after (358). The Chamavi were a Germanic tribe of Late Antiquity and the European Dark Age. Toxandria is the classical name for a region between the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers in The Netherlands and Belgium. The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries.

Batavian Rebellion

Main article: Batavian rebellion. The Revolt of the Batavi took place in the Roman province of Germania Inferior (S

Despite the alliance, one of the high-ranking Batavi, Julius Paullus, to give him his Roman name, was executed by Fonteius Capito on a false charge of rebellion. His kinsman Gaius Julius Civilis was paraded in chains in Rome before Nero; though he was acquitted by Galba, he was retained at Rome, and when he returned to his kin in the year of upheaval in the Roman Empire, 69, he headed a Batavian rebellion which was defeated by the Romans the following year, a narrative told in great detail in Tacitus' History, book iv, although, unfortunately, the narrative breaks off abruptly at the climax. Gaius Julius Civilis was the leader of the Batavian rebellion against the Romans in 69. Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( December 15, 37 – June 9, 68) born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Servius Sulpicius Galba ( December 24, 3 BC &ndash January 15, 69) also called Servius Sulpicius Galba Caesar 69 (sex position & book by Ryu Murakami are -- already linked by "" with other meanings Following the uprising, Legio X Gemina was housed in a stone castra to keep an eye on the Batavians. Legio X Gemina, the twin legion, was one of the four legions used by Julius Caesar in 58 BC, for his invasion of Gaul.

Notes

External links

• Tacitus, Histories, Book iv
• A map of the Roman province Germania Inferior and neighbouring tribes. Germania Inferior was a Roman province located on the left bank of the Rhine, in today's southern and western Netherlands, parts of
• Cohors Primae Batavorum