Mediomatrici

The Mediomatrici (Gaulish: *Medio-māteres) were according to Caesar a Gaulish tribe at the frontier to the Belgicae dwelling in the present-day regions Lorraine, Upper Moselle during the Iron Age and the Roman period.

Map of Gaul with tribes, 1st century BC; the Mediomatrici are circled.
Map of Gaul with tribes, 1st century BC; the Mediomatrici are circled.
Civitas of the Mediomatrici
City scape of Divodurum Mediomatricum (ca. 2nd century AD), ancestor of present-day Metz, capital of the Mediomatrici.

Name

They are mentioned as Mediomatricorum and Mediomatricis (dat.) by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC),[1] Mediomatrikoì (Μεδιοματρικοὶ ) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD),[2] Mediomatrici by Pliny (1st c. AD),[3] Mediomatricos (acc.) by Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD),[4] and as Mediomátrikes (Μεδιομάτρικες) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).[5][6]

The ethnonym Mediomatrici is a Latinized form of the Gaulish *Medio-māteres, which literally means 'Middle-Mothers'. It is formed with the stem medio- ('in the middle, central') attached to a plural form of mātīr ('mother'). The name could be interpreted as meaning 'those who live between the Matrona (Marne) and the Matra rivers' (i.e. the mother-rivers), or possibly as the 'Mothers of the Middle-World' (i.e. between the heaven and the underworld).[7]

The city of Metz, attested ca. 400 AD as civitas Mediomatricorum ('civitas of the Mediomatrici'), is named after the Celtic tribe.[8]

Geography

Territory
Mediomatrici quarter-stater. Ca. 100 BC.

The territory of the Mediomatrici comprised the upper basins of the rivers Maas, Moselle and Saar, and extended eastwards as far as the Rhine in the mid-first century BC.[9][10] Ptolemy places them south of the Treviri, between the Remi and the Leuci.[11]

Settlements

Their chief town was Divodurum ('place of the gods, divine enclosure'),[note 1] mentioned by Tacitus in the early 1st century AD.[13][12][9]

A secondary agglomeration, whose original name is unknown, was located in Bliesbruck, in the eastern part of their civitas.[14][15]

History

During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), the Mediomatrici sent 5,000 men to support Vercingetorix who was besieged in Alesia in 52.[16][9] In 69–70 of the Common Era, their capital Divodurum was sacked by the armies of Vitellius, and 4,000 of its inhabitants massacred.[16] The Romanization of the Metromatrici was apparently slower compared to their neighbours the Treviri.[17][10]

Elements of the Mediomatrici may have settled near Novara, in northwestern Italy, where place-names allude to their presence, such as Mezzomerico, attested as Mediomadrigo in 980.[18]

References
  1. Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico. 4:10, 7:75.
  2. Strabo. Geōgraphiká, 4:3:4.
  3. Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:106.
  4. Tacitus. Historiae, 4:70.
  5. Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:9:7.
  6. Falileyev 2010, s.v. Mediomatrici.
  7. Delamarre 2003, pp. 220, 222.
  8. Nègre 1990, p. 155.
  9. Schön 2006.
  10. Demougin 1995, p. 193.
  11. Berggren, J. L.; Jones, Alexander (2000). Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters. Princeton University Press. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-691-01042-7.
  12. Delamarre 2003, p. 156.
  13. Nègre 1990, p. 175.
  14. Petit & Santoro 2016.
  15. Antonelli & Petit 2017.
  16. Demougin 1995, p. 183.
  17. Wightman 1985, pp. 73–74.
  18. Ambrogio, Renzo, ed. (2006). Nomi d'Italia : origine e significato dei nomi geografici e di tutti i comuni. Istituto geografico De Agostini. p. 384. ISBN 88-511-0983-4. OCLC 605741780.

Footnotes
  1. From Gaulish deuos 'god' attached to duron 'gates' > 'enclosed town, market town').[12]

Bibliography
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