Sicambri
Encyclopedia
The Sicambri were a Germanic people living on the right bank of the Rhine river, near where it passes out of Germany and enters what is now called the Netherlands
at the turn of the first millennium.
Originating in the Germanic
-Celtic contact zone (cf. Nordwestblock
), the region they lived in had become Frankish
by the 3rd century, associated with the Low Franconian Salians
.
by Julius Caesar
and his expansion of the Roman Empire
. Caesar wrote in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico
that at the confluence of the Rhine and Meuse River
a battle took place in the land of the Menapii
with Tencteri and Usipetes. When these two peoples were routed by him their cavalry escaped and found asylum north of the river with the Sicambri. Caesar then built a bridge across the river to punish the Sicambri.
Claudius Ptolemy located the Sicambri, together with the Bructeri Minores
, at the most northern part of the Rhine and south of the Frisii
who inhabit the coast north of the river. Strabo
located the Sicambri next to the Menapii, “who dwell on both sides of the river Rhine near its mouth, in marshes and woods. It is opposite to these Menapii that the Sicambri are situated". This information places the Sicambri near the lower Rhine in or near what is now called the Netherlands.
When Caesar defeated the Eburones, he invited all of the peoples that were interested to destroy the remainder. The Sicambri responded to Caesar's call. They took large amounts of cattle, slaves and plunder. Caesar commented that "these men are born for war and raids", "No swamp or marsh will stop them". After the raid on Eburones they moved on against the Romans. They destroyed some of Caesars units, in revenge of his campaign against them and when the remains of the legion withdrew into the city Atuatuca
the Sicambri went back across the Rhine.
In 16 BC their leader Melo, brother of Baetorix, organised a raid and defeated a Roman army under the command of Marcus Lollius
, which sparked a reaction from the Roman Empire and helped start the series of Germanic Wars
. Later the Sicambri under Deudorix, son of Baetorix, joined the rebellion of Arminius
with whom they terminated the 3 Roman legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus
.
In 11 BC, a part of this tribe was forced by Nero Claudius Drusus
to move to the south side of the lower Rhine, where they evidently formed a component of the Tungri
before becoming Franks
. The main part of the Sicambri "migrated deep into the country anticipating the Romans" according to Strabo
.
Martial
, in his Liber De Spectaculis, a series of epigrams written to celebrate the games in the Colosseum under Titus or Domitian, noted the attendance of numerous peoples, including the Sicambri: "With locks twisted into a knot, are come the Sicambrians..."
, and like their neighbours across the Rhine, the Eburones
, many names of Sicambrian leaders end in typical Belgicized
(or Celticized) suffixes like -rix (Baetorix, Deudorix, etc.), it could also indicate intense contacts with Belgian neighbours like the Menapi, and different from other Germanic tribes.
were called Sicambri. An example of this custom is remembered by the 6th century historian Gregory of Tours
(II, 31), who states that the Merovingian Frankish leader Clovis I
, on the occasion of his baptism into the Catholic
faith, was addressed as a Sicamber by Saint Remigius
, the officiating bishop of Rheims. At the crucial moment of Clovis' baptism, Remigius declared, "Now you must bend down your head, you proud Sicamber. Honour what you have burnt. Burn what you have honoured." It is likely that this recalled a link between the Sicambri and the Salian Franks, who were Clovis' people.
More examples of Salians being called Sicamber can be found in the Panegyrici Latini
, Life of King Sigismund, Life of King Dagobert and other sources.
states that following the fall of Troy
, 12,000 Trojans led by chiefs Priam
and Antenor
moved to the Tanais
(Don) river, settled in Pannonia
near the Sea of Azov
and founded a city called Sicambria. In just 2 generations from the fall of Troy (by modern scholars dated in the late Bronze Age) they arrive in the late 4th century AD at the Rhine. A variation of this story can also be read in Fredegar, and similar tales continue to crop up repeatedly throughout obscure, mediaeval-era European literature.
These stories have obvious difficulties. Historians, including eyewitnesses like Caesar, have given us accounts that place the Sicambri firmly at the delta of the Rhine, and archaeologists have confirmed ongoing settlement of peoples. Furthermore the myth does not come from the Sicambri themselves, but from later Franks, and includes an incorrect geography. But most of all these stories are a "farrago nonsense" (Wood), for a man does not live that long. For these reasons, and since the Sicambri were known to have been Germanic
, and not Scythian as the story claims, modern scholars reject it as an unhistorical legend. For example J.M. Wallace-Hadrill states that "this legend is quite without historical substance". Ian Wood says that "these tales are obviously no more than legend" and "nonsensical", "in fact there is no reason to believe that the Franks were involved in any long-distance migration".
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
at the turn of the first millennium.
Originating in the Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
-Celtic contact zone (cf. Nordwestblock
Nordwestblock
The Nordwestblock , is a hypothetical cultural region, that several 20th century scholars propose as a prehistoric culture, thought to be roughly bounded by the rivers Meuse, Elbe, Somme and Oise and possibly the eastern part of England during the Bronze and Iron Ages The Nordwestblock (English:...
), the region they lived in had become Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
by the 3rd century, associated with the Low Franconian Salians
Salian Franks
The Salian Franks or Salii were a subgroup of the early Franks who originally had been living north of the limes in the area above the Rhine. The Merovingian kings responsible for the conquest of Gaul were Salians. From the 3rd century on, the Salian Franks appear in the historical records as...
.
History
The Sicambri appear in history around 55 BC, during the time of conquests of GaulGaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
by Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
and his expansion of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Caesar wrote in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Commentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination.The "Gaul" that Caesar...
that at the confluence of the Rhine and Meuse River
Meuse River
The Maas or Meuse is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea...
a battle took place in the land of the Menapii
Menapii
The Menapii were a Belgic tribe of northern Gaul in pre-Roman and Roman times. Their territory according to Strabo, Caesar and Ptolemy stretched from the mouth of the Rhine in the north, and southwards along the west of the Schelde. Their civitas under the Roman empire was Cassel , near Thérouanne...
with Tencteri and Usipetes. When these two peoples were routed by him their cavalry escaped and found asylum north of the river with the Sicambri. Caesar then built a bridge across the river to punish the Sicambri.
Claudius Ptolemy located the Sicambri, together with the Bructeri Minores
Bructeri
The Bructeri were a Germanic tribe located in northwestern Germany , between the Lippe and Ems rivers south of the Teutoburg Forest, in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia around 100 BC through 350 AD....
, at the most northern part of the Rhine and south of the Frisii
Frisii
The Frisii were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Zuiderzee and the River Ems. In the Germanic pre-Migration Period the Frisii and the related Chauci, Saxons, and Angles inhabited the Continental European coast from the Zuyder Zee to south Jutland...
who inhabit the coast north of the river. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
located the Sicambri next to the Menapii, “who dwell on both sides of the river Rhine near its mouth, in marshes and woods. It is opposite to these Menapii that the Sicambri are situated". This information places the Sicambri near the lower Rhine in or near what is now called the Netherlands.
When Caesar defeated the Eburones, he invited all of the peoples that were interested to destroy the remainder. The Sicambri responded to Caesar's call. They took large amounts of cattle, slaves and plunder. Caesar commented that "these men are born for war and raids", "No swamp or marsh will stop them". After the raid on Eburones they moved on against the Romans. They destroyed some of Caesars units, in revenge of his campaign against them and when the remains of the legion withdrew into the city Atuatuca
Atuatuca
Atuatuca was the name of one or more fortified settlements in the region between the Scheldt and Rhine rivers, during the "Gallic wars" of Julius Caesar. The word itself possibly meant "fortress". The pronuciation "Atuatuca" with a "t" is considered to be the original, despite many Latin documents...
the Sicambri went back across the Rhine.
In 16 BC their leader Melo, brother of Baetorix, organised a raid and defeated a Roman army under the command of Marcus Lollius
Marcus Lollius
Marcus Lollius Paulinus, Roman was a general, the first governor of Galatia and served as consul in 21 BC. In 16 BC, when governor of Gaul , he was defeated by the Sicambri and Tencteri and Usipetes, German tribes who had crossed the Rhine...
, which sparked a reaction from the Roman Empire and helped start the series of Germanic Wars
Germanic Wars
The Germanic Wars is a name given to a series of wars between the Romans and various Germanic tribes between 113 BCE and 439 CE. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire that started in the late 2nd...
. Later the Sicambri under Deudorix, son of Baetorix, joined the rebellion of Arminius
Arminius
Arminius , also known as Armin or Hermann was a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest...
with whom they terminated the 3 Roman legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus
Publius Quinctilius Varus
Publius Quinctilius Varus was a Roman politician and general under Emperor Augustus, mainly remembered for having lost three Roman legions and his own life when attacked by Germanic leader Arminius in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.-Life:His paternal grandfather was senator Sextus Quinctilius...
.
In 11 BC, a part of this tribe was forced by Nero Claudius Drusus
Nero Claudius Drusus
Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a fully patrician Claudian on his father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family...
to move to the south side of the lower Rhine, where they evidently formed a component of the Tungri
Tungri
The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part Gaul, during the times of the Roman empire. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" , meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in...
before becoming Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
. The main part of the Sicambri "migrated deep into the country anticipating the Romans" according to Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
.
Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, in his Liber De Spectaculis, a series of epigrams written to celebrate the games in the Colosseum under Titus or Domitian, noted the attendance of numerous peoples, including the Sicambri: "With locks twisted into a knot, are come the Sicambrians..."
Language
Like the CimbriCimbri
The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. The Cimbri were probably Germanic, though some believe them to be of Celtic origin...
, and like their neighbours across the Rhine, the Eburones
Eburones
The Eburones , were a Belgic people who lived in the northeast of Gaul, near the river Meuse and the modern provinces of Belgian and Dutch Limburg, in the period immediately before it was conquered by Rome. They played a major role in Julius Caesar's account of his "Gallic Wars", as the most...
, many names of Sicambrian leaders end in typical Belgicized
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
(or Celticized) suffixes like -rix (Baetorix, Deudorix, etc.), it could also indicate intense contacts with Belgian neighbours like the Menapi, and different from other Germanic tribes.
Sicambri as poetic name for Salian Franks
In Roman and Merovingian times, it was a custom to declare panegyrics. These poetic declarations were held for fun or propaganda to entertain guests and please rulers. Those panegyrics played an important role in the transmission of culture. One of the ritual customs of these poetic declarations is the use of archaic names for contemporary things. Romans were often called Trojans, and Salian FranksSalian Franks
The Salian Franks or Salii were a subgroup of the early Franks who originally had been living north of the limes in the area above the Rhine. The Merovingian kings responsible for the conquest of Gaul were Salians. From the 3rd century on, the Salian Franks appear in the historical records as...
were called Sicambri. An example of this custom is remembered by the 6th century historian Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
(II, 31), who states that the Merovingian Frankish leader Clovis I
Clovis I
Clovis Leuthwig was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul . He was the son...
, on the occasion of his baptism into the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
faith, was addressed as a Sicamber by Saint Remigius
Saint Remigius
Saint Remigius, Remy or Remi, , was Bishop of Reims and Apostle of the Franks, . On 24 December 496 he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks...
, the officiating bishop of Rheims. At the crucial moment of Clovis' baptism, Remigius declared, "Now you must bend down your head, you proud Sicamber. Honour what you have burnt. Burn what you have honoured." It is likely that this recalled a link between the Sicambri and the Salian Franks, who were Clovis' people.
More examples of Salians being called Sicamber can be found in the Panegyrici Latini
Panegyrici Latini
The Panegyrici Latini or Latin Panegyrics is a collection of twelve ancient Roman panegyric orations. The authors of most of the speeches in the collection are anonymous, but appear to have been Gallic in origin. Aside from the first panegyric, composed by Pliny the Younger in 100 CE, the other...
, Life of King Sigismund, Life of King Dagobert and other sources.
Sicambri in Frankish mythology
An anonymous work of 727 called Liber Historiae FrancorumLiber Historiae Francorum
Liber historiae Francorum is a book that briefly starts as secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, and it gives a short breviarum of events until the time of the late Merovingians, where it becomes an important primary source of the contemporaneous history...
states that following the fall of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
, 12,000 Trojans led by chiefs Priam
Priam
Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
and Antenor
Antenor (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Anthenor was a son of the Dardanian noble Aesyetes by Cleomestra. He is a counselor to Priam during the Trojan War.-History:He was one of the wisest of the Trojan elders and counsellors...
moved to the Tanais
Tanais
Tanais is the ancient name for the River Don in Russia. Strabo regarded it as the boundary between Europe and Asia.In antiquity, Tanais was also the name of a city in the Don river delta that reaches into the northeasternmost part of the Sea of Azov, which the Greeks called Lake Maeotis...
(Don) river, settled in Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
near the Sea of Azov
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...
and founded a city called Sicambria. In just 2 generations from the fall of Troy (by modern scholars dated in the late Bronze Age) they arrive in the late 4th century AD at the Rhine. A variation of this story can also be read in Fredegar, and similar tales continue to crop up repeatedly throughout obscure, mediaeval-era European literature.
These stories have obvious difficulties. Historians, including eyewitnesses like Caesar, have given us accounts that place the Sicambri firmly at the delta of the Rhine, and archaeologists have confirmed ongoing settlement of peoples. Furthermore the myth does not come from the Sicambri themselves, but from later Franks, and includes an incorrect geography. But most of all these stories are a "farrago nonsense" (Wood), for a man does not live that long. For these reasons, and since the Sicambri were known to have been Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
, and not Scythian as the story claims, modern scholars reject it as an unhistorical legend. For example J.M. Wallace-Hadrill states that "this legend is quite without historical substance". Ian Wood says that "these tales are obviously no more than legend" and "nonsensical", "in fact there is no reason to believe that the Franks were involved in any long-distance migration".
Literature
- Johannes Heinrich: Sugambrer. In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der germanischen AltertumskundeReallexikon der germanischen AltertumskundeThe Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde is an important German-language encyclopedia treating the history of the Germanic peoples from antiquity to the middle ages...
. Bd. 30. de Gruyter, Berlin – New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-018385-4. - Bruno Krüger (Hrsg.), Die Germanen – Geschichte und Kultur der germanischen Stämme in Mitteleuropa. Ein Handbuch in zwei Bänden. Bd. 1, 4. Auflage, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1983 (Publications of the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Bd. 4).
- Alexander Sitzmann, Friedrich E. Grünzweig, Hermann Reichert (Hrsg.): Die altgermanischen Ethnonyme. Fassbaender, Wien 2008, ISBN 978-3-902575-07-4.
- Reinhard Wolters, Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald. Arminius, Varus und das römische Germanien. Beck, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57674-4.
See also
- List of Germanic peoples
- CimmeriansCimmeriansThe Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...
External links
- Le mythe de l'origine troyenne (in French)
- Archaeological search for Sicambria (in Hungarian)
Sources
- Julius Caesar - Commentarii de Bello GallicoCommentarii de Bello GallicoCommentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination.The "Gaul" that Caesar...
, particularly Book 6, Chapter 35 - Martial - Liber De Spectaculis, 3
- Tacitus - Annals
- Strabo - Geography
- Ptolemy - The Geography
- Fredegar - The 4th book of the chronicle of Fredegar with its continuations, translated by J. M. Wallace-Hadrill. Books on Demand, reprint 2005.
- Ian Wood - The Merovingian Kingdoms. Pearson Education, 1994.