Map of Gaul with tribes, 1st century BC; the Mediomatrici are circled.
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.
Name
They are mentioned as Mediomatricorum and Mediomatricis (dat.) by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), Mediomatrikoì (Μεδιοματρικοὶ ) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), Mediomatrici by Pliny (1st c. AD), Mediomatricos (acc.) by Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD), and as Mediomátrikes (Μεδιομάτρικες) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).
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).
The city of Metz, attested ca. 400 AD as civitas Mediomatricorum ('civitas of the Mediomatrici'), is named after the Celtic tribe.
Geography
Territory
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. Ptolemy places them south of the Treviri, between the Remi and the Leuci.
Settlements
Their chief town was Divodurum ('place of the gods, divine enclosure'), mentioned by Tacitus in the early 1st century AD.
A secondary agglomeration, whose original name is unknown, was located in Bliesbruck, in the eastern part of their civitas.
History
During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), the Mediomatrici sent 5,000 men to support Vercingetorix who was besieged in Alesia in 52. In 69–70 of the Common Era, their capital Divodurum was sacked by the armies of Vitellius, and 4,000 of its inhabitants massacred. The Romanization of the Metromatrici was apparently slower compared to their neighbours the Treviri.
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.
References
- Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico. 4:10, 7:75.
- Strabo. Geōgraphiká, 4:3:4.
- Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:106.
- Tacitus. Historiae, 4:70.
- Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:9:7.
- Falileyev 2010, s.v. Mediomatrici.
- Delamarre 2003, pp. 220, 222.
- Nègre 1990, p. 155.
- ^ Schön 2006.
- ^ Demougin 1995, p. 193.
- 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.
- ^ Delamarre 2003, p. 156.
- Nègre 1990, p. 175.
- Petit & Santoro 2016.
- Antonelli & Petit 2017.
- ^ Demougin 1995, p. 183.
- Wightman 1985, pp. 73–74.
- 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
- From Gaulish deuos 'god' attached to duron 'gates' > 'enclosed town, market town').
Bibliography
- Antonelli, Sonia; Petit, Jean-Paul (2017). "L'agglomération de Bliesbruck (Moselle) durant l'Antiquité tardive : entre ruptures et continuités". Gallia. Archéologie des Gaules. 74 (74–1): 149–164. doi:10.4000/gallia.2428. ISSN 0016-4119.
- Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Errance. ISBN 9782877723695.
- Demougin, Ségolène (1995). "À propos des Médiomatriques". Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz. 6: 183–194. doi:10.3406/ccgg.1995.1608. ISSN 1016-9008. JSTOR 24359561.
- Falileyev, Alexander (2010). Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-names: A Celtic Companion to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. CMCS. ISBN 978-0955718236.
- Nègre, Ernest (1990). Toponymie générale de la France. Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02883-7.
- Petit, Jean-Paul; Santoro, Sara (2016). "Le centre public d'une agglomération secondaire de la cité des Médiomatriques : Bliesbruck (Moselle)". Gallia. Archéologie des Gaules. 73 (73–2): 213–283. doi:10.4000/gallia.2734. ISSN 0016-4119.
- Schön, Franz (2006). "Mediomatrici". Brill's New Pauly. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e728280.
- Wightman, Edith M. (1985). Gallia Belgica. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05297-0.
