Batavi (Germanic tribe)

other the Lower Rhine/Old Rhine (hence the Latin name

Insula Batavorum, Island of the Batavi).[1] Much later
Funerary stela of one of Nero's Corporis Custodes, the imperial Tacitus wrote that they had originally been a tribe of the
Germanic bodyguard. The bodyguard, Indus, was of the Bata- Chatti, a tribe in Germany never mentioned by Caesar,
vian tribe. who were forced by internal dissension to move to their
new home.[2]
The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe that lived
Tacitus also reports that before their arrival the area had
around the modern Dutch Rhine delta in the area that the
been an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast
Romans called Batavia, from the second half of the rst
of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded
century BC to the third century AD. The name is also ap-
by the ocean in front, and by the river Rhine in the rear
plied to several military units employed by the Romans
and on either side.[3] This view, however, is contradicted
that were originally raised among the Batavi. The tribal
by the archeological evidence, which shows continuous
name, probably a derivation from batawj (good island,
habitation from at least the third century BC onward.[4]
from Germanic bat- good, excellent, which is also in
the English better, and awj island, land near water), The strategic position, to wit the high bank of the Waal
refers to the regions fertility, today known as the fruit- which oered an unimpeded view far into Germania
basket of the Netherlands (the Betuwe). Transrhenana (Germania Beyond the Rhine)was rec-
ognized rst by Drusus, who built a massive fortress (cas-
Finds of wooden tablets show that at least some were lit-
tra) and a headquarters (praetorium) in imperial style.
erate.
The latter was in use until the Batavian revolt.
Archeological evidence suggests they lived in small vil-
lages, composed of six to 12 houses in the very fertile
1 Location lands between the rivers, and lived by agriculture and
cattle-raising. Finds of horse skeletons in graves suggest
The Batavi, or at least the Batavian island in the Rhine a strong equestrian preoccupation. On the south bank of
river, were mentioned by Julius Caesar in his commentary the Waal (in what is now Nijmegen) a Roman adminis-
Commentarii de Bello Gallico. The islands easternmost trative center was built, called Oppidum Batavorum. An
point is at a split in the Rhine, one arm being the Waal the Oppidum was a fortied warehouse, where a tribes trea-

1
2 2 MILITARY UNITS

sures were stored and guarded. This centre was razed the barbarians from several sides at once and
during the Batavian Revolt. cut down many of them. (Cassius Dio, Roman
History, Book 60:20)

2 Military units
It is uncertain how they were able to accomplish this feat.
The late 4th century writer on Roman military aairs
Vegetius mentions soldiers using reed rafts, drawn by
leather leads, to transport equipment across rivers.[6] 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 oating on their
shields as on a canoe (357).[7] Since the shields were
wooden, they may have provided sucient buoyancy
The Batavi were used to form the bulk of the Emperors
personal Germanic bodyguard from Augustus to Galba.
They also provided a contingent for their indirect succes-
The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis by
sors, the Emperors horse guards, the Equites singulares
Rembrandt van Rijn
Augusti.
The rst Batavi commander we know of is named A Batavian contingent was used in an amphibious assault
Chariovalda, who led a charge across the Vsurgis on Ynys Mon (Anglesey), taking the assembled Druids by
(Weser) river against the Cherusci led by Arminius dur- surprise, as they were only expecting Roman ships.[8]
ing the campaigns of Germanicus in Germania Tran-
Numerous altars and tombstones of the cohorts of Batavi,
srhenana.[5]
dating to the 2nd century and 3rd century, have been
Tacitus (De origine et situ Germanorum XXIX) described found along Hadrians Wall, notably at Castlecary and
the Batavi as the bravest of the tribes of the area, hard- Carrawburgh, Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania
ened in the Germanic wars, with cohorts under their own and Austria.
commanders transferred to Britannia. They retained the
honour of the ancient association with the Romans, not
required to pay tribute or taxes and used by the Ro-
mans only for war: They furnished to the Empire noth-
2.1 Revolt of the Batavi
ing but men and arms, Tacitus remarked. Well re-
garded for their skills in horsemanship and swimming
for men and horses could cross the Rhine without losing Main article: Revolt of the Batavi
formation, according to Tacitus. Dio Cassius describes
this surprise tactic employed by Aulus Plautius against Despite the alliance, one of the high-ranking Batavi,
the barbariansthe British Celts at the battle of the Julius Paullus, to give him his Roman name, was exe-
River Medway, 43: cuted by Fonteius Capito on a false charge of rebellion.
His kinsman Gaius Julius Civilis was paraded in chains in
The barbarians thought that Romans would not Rome before Nero; though he was acquitted by Galba, he
be able to cross it without a bridge, and conse- was retained at Rome, and when he returned to his kin in
quently bivouacked in rather careless fashion on the year of upheaval in the Roman Empire, 69, he headed
the opposite bank; but he sent across a detach- a Batavian rebellion. He managed to capture Castra Vet-
ment of Germanic tribesmen, who were accus- era, the Romans lost two legions while two others (I Ger-
tomed to swim easily in full armour across the manica and XVI Gallica) were controlled by the rebels.
most turbulent streams. [...] Thence the Britons The rebellion became a real threat to the Empire when the
retired to the river Thames at a point near where conict escalated to northern Gaul and Germania. The
it empties into the ocean and at ood-tide forms Roman army retaliated and invaded the insula Batavo-
a lake. This they easily crossed because they rum. A bridge was built over the river Nabalia, where
knew where the rm ground and the easy pas- the warring parties approached each other on both sides
sages in this region were to be found; but the Ro- to negotiate peace. The narrative was told in great detail
mans in attempting to follow them were not so in Tacitus History, book iv, although, unfortunately, the
successful. However, the Germans swam across narrative breaks o abruptly at the climax. Following the
again and some others got over by a bridge a uprising, Legio X Gemina was housed in a stone castra to
little way up-stream, after which they assailed keep an eye on the Batavians.
 3

3 Fate of the Batavi
The Batavi 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 after having been expelled
from their own country by the Saxons.
Constantius Gallus added inhabitants of Batavia to his le-
gions, of whose discipline we still make use.[9] 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 was the Chamavi), shared their
subsequent migration to Toxandria. In the Late Roman
army there was a unit called Batavi.
The name of the Bavarian town of Passau descends from
the Roman Batavis, which was named after the Batavi.
The towns name is old as it shows the typical eects of
the High German consonant shift (b > p, t > ss).
edge lost its grip on anthropology and mostly vanished.[13]
Modern variants of the Batavian founding myth are made
more accurate by pointing out that the Batavians were one
part of the ancestry of the Dutch people - together with
the Frisians, Franks and Saxons - by tracing patterns of
DNA. Echoes of this cultural continuity can still be found
among various areas of Dutch modern culture, such as the
very popular replica of the ship Batavia that can today be
found in Lelystad.
5 See also
Laeti
List of Germanic peoples
6 Notes

4 The Batavian revival [1] C. Julius Caesar, Gallic War, Book 4, chapter 10.
tufts.edu.

Main article: History of the Netherlands Batavians [2] Cornelius Tacitus, Germany and its Tribes 1.29

[3] Tacitus, Historiae iv.12

In the 16th-century emergence of a popular foundation
story and origin myth for the Dutch people, the Batavians [4] N. Roymans, The Lower Rhine Triquetrum Coinages and
came to be regarded as their ancestors during their na- the Ethnogenesis of the Batavians, in: T. Grnewald
tional struggle for independence during the Eighty Years & H.-J. Schalles (eds.), Germania Inferior: Besiedlung,
War.[10][11] The mix of fancy and fact in the Cronyke Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft an der Grenze der rmisch-
van Hollandt, Zeelandt ende Vriesland (called the Di- germanischen Welt (2000), 93-145, esp. 94.
visiekroniek) by the Augustinian friar and humanist Cor-
[5] Tacitus, The Annals 2.11
nelius Gerardi Aurelius, rst published in 1517, brought
the spare remarks in Tacitus newly rediscovered Ger- [6] Vegetius De re militari III.7
mania to a popular public; it was being reprinted as
late as 1802.[12] Contemporary Dutch virtues of inde- [7] Ammianus Marcellinus XVI.11
pendence, fortitude and industry were fully recogniz-
able among the Batavians in more scholarly history rep- [8] Tacitus Agricola 18.3-5
resented in Hugo Grotius' Liber de Antiquitate Republi-
[9] Zosimus, New History. London: Green and Chaplin
cae Batavicorum (1610). The origin was perpetuated by (1814). Book 3.. tertullian.org.
Romeyn de Hooghes Spiegel van Staat der Vereenigden
Nederlanden (Mirror of the State of the United Nether- [10] This section follows Simon Schama, The Embarrassment
lands, 1706), which also ran to many editions, and it of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden
was revived in the atmosphere of Romantic nationalism in Age, (New York) 1987, ch. II Patriotic Scripture, espe-
the late eighteenth-century reforms that saw a short-lived cially pp. 72 .
Batavian Republic and, in the colony of the Dutch East
Indies, a capital (now Jakarta) that was named Batavia. [11] The Batavian Myth: A Study Pack from the Department
of Dutch, University College London
The success of this tale of origins was mostly due to re-
semblance in anthropology, which was based on tribal [12] I. Scher, The Batavian myth during the sixteenth and
knowledge. Being politically and geographically inclu- seventeenth centuries, in P. A. M. Geurts and A. E. M.
sive, this historical vision lled the needs of Dutch nation- Janssen, Geschiedschrijving in Nederland ('Gravenhage)
building and integration in the 1890-1914 era. 1981:84-109, noted by Schama 1987.
However, a disadvantage of this historical nationalism [13] Beyen, Marnix (2000 30(4): 493-532). A Tribal Trinity:
soon became apparent. It suggested there were no strong the Rise and Fall of the Franks, the Frisians and the Saxons
external borders, while allowing for the fairly clear-cut in the Historical Consciousness of the Netherlands since
internal borders that were emerging as the society pil- 1850. European History Quarterly. ISSN 0265-6914.
larized into three parts. After 1945 the tribal knowl- Check date values in: |date= (help) Fulltext: EBSCO
4 8 EXTERNAL LINKS

7 Bibliography
Nico Roymans, Hercules and the construction of
a Batavian identity in the context of the Roman
empire, in Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (ed.), Eth-
nic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power
and Tradition (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University
Press, 2009) (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies,
13), 219-238.
Ton Derks, Ethnic identity in the Roman fron-
tier. The epigraphy of Batavi and other Lower
Rhine tribes, in Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (ed.),
Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power
and Tradition (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University
Press, 2009) (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies,
13), 239-282.

The Batavian Myth: A Study Pack from the Depart-

ment of Dutch, University College London

Prof. M. Speidel: Riding for Caesar: the Ro-

man Emperors Horse-Guard, (Boston, Routledge,
1994)

8 External links
Tacitus, Histories, Book iv

A map of the Roman province Germania Inferior

and neighbouring tribes.

Cohors Primae Batavorum

 5

9 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1 Text
Batavi (Germanic tribe) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavi_(Germanic_tribe)?oldid=718039747 Contributors: Jeronimo, An-
dre Engels, Ktsquare, Panairjdde~enwiki, Edward, Llywrch, Muriel Gottrop~enwiki, Viajero, Roepers, Wetman, Donreed, Geogre,
GreatWhiteNortherner, DocWatson42, Wiglaf, Everyking, Junuxx, Quadell, Carolus~enwiki, Biot, Sonett72, Pasquale, Dbachmann,
NantonosAedui, Bluemoose, Kbdank71, Angusmclellan, ShotokanTuning, YurikBot, Akamad, Theelf29, The Ogre, Voyevoda, Welsh,
Rjensen, Andrew Lancaster, Aklark~enwiki, SmackBot, Flamarande, Chris the speller, Rex Germanus, Cplakidas, Iblardi, Kleuske, Ned-
dyseagoon, JdH, Thomas Antonius, Eastfrisian, JoeBot, CmdrObot, Van helsing, Stefan Jansen, Thijs!bot, Flibjib8, Goldenrowley, Arch
dude, JNW, KConWiki, CodeCat, R'n'B, Iijjccoo, TheTrojanHought, DorganBot, Margacst, PlaysInPeoria, Rokus01, TXiKiBoT, Husky-
Huskie, Varoon Arya, Cantiorix, AlleborgoBot, SieBot, BotMultichill, Trigaranus, Xenophon777, Yarro, Pjbjas, P. S. Burton, Gavin Ket-
tis!, EraNavigator, Steinfeld7, Notuncurious, Bermicourt, Legobot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, AnomieBOT, Grey Fox-9589, Xqbot, The Banner,
TakenakaN, GrouchoBot, Flaviusvulso, Joostik, TobeBot, Trappist the monk, Lotje, TjBot, EmausBot, Dewritech, Finn Bjrklid, ,
Loginnigol, Alphasinus, Silent-silent-mind, Marcocapelle, ChrisGualtieri, Metalello, Ahahaha373, Krakkos, Prinsgezinde and Anonymous:
31

9.2 Images
File:Bataafseeed.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bataafseeed.jpg License: Public domain Contribu-
tors: ? Original artist: Rembrandt
File:Continental.coast.150AD.Germanic.peoples.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Continental.
coast.150AD.Germanic.peoples.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: John Haywoods Dark Age Naval Power: Frankish & Anglo-
Saxon Seafaring Activity (1999, ISBN 1-898281-43-2). The peoples are named in the text, with their locations shown on page 18. Also
given in the text is the division between regions using clinker-built ships/boats and carvel-built ships/boats, with the dividing line at the
Rhine River (which itself was in the carvel-built ship/boat-building region, from the Lower Rhine through the Middle Rhine). Use Tacitus
Germania for Canninefates placement. Original artist: my work
File:Funerary_Stela_Corporis_Custodes.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Funerary_Stela_
Corporis_Custodes.jpg License: CC SA 1.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
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tributors: ? Original artist: ?

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