TheTungri (orTongri, orTungrians) were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in theBelgic part ofGaul, during the times of theRoman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, their territory was called theCivitas Tungrorum. They were described byTacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" (Germanic), meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those inGermania east of the riverRhine, were named after them. More specifically, Tacitus was thereby equating the Tungri with the "Germani Cisrhenani" described generations earlier byJulius Caesar.
Their name is the source of several place names in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, includingTongeren, which was the capital of their Roman era province, thecivitas Tungrorum, and also places such asTongerlo Abbey, andTongelre.[1]
In a comment in his bookGermania,Tacitus remarks thatGermani was the original tribal name of theTungri with whom the Gauls were in contact; among the Gauls the termGermani came to be widely applied. The sentence has been the subject of frequent debate about the exact details. Discussing the names of Germanic peoples or races (gentis appellationes), Tacitus noted that some names were speculated to be true and ancient, but "Germania" was known by him to be a new term, invented when the termGermani came to be applied more widely:[2]
the term "Germania" is recent and newly in use, because those who first crossed the Rhine and expelled the Gauls, now called the Tungri, were then calledGermani. Thus the name of the nation (natio), not the people (gens), gradually prevailed, so that all [east of the Rhine] came to be referred to with this artificial termGermani.
According to Tacitus then, first the victor, the Tungri, used this term to refer to other peoples from the homeland east of the Rhine, which would thus come to be called "Germania". They did this "ob metum" which could mean "to inspire fear" or "out of fear". In any case, soon other people fromGermania used this term themselves.[3]
Corresponding to this, some generations earlier,Julius Caesar, on the other hand, did not mention the Tungri but stated that theCondrusi, theEburones, theCaeroesi and thePaemani, living in the same approximate area as the later Tungri, were "called by the common name ofGermani" and had settled in Gaul already before theCimbrian War (113-101 BCE), having come from Germany east of the Rhine. Caesar cited them as providing one collective contribution of men to the Belgic revolt against him within which the Eburones were the most important. The Eburones, who apparently lived as far east as Cologne, were led byAmbiorix andCativolcus.[4] Also neighbouring these tribes where theAduatuci, whose origin Caesar describes more specifically as having descended from theCimbri andTeutones, against whom the Germani had been the only tribe in Gaul to successfully defend themselves.[5] Their descendants, if there were any, presumably lived amongst the Tungri.
Already during the campaign of Caesar, theTencteri andUsipetes crossed the Rhine for cattle raids on the territories of theMenapii, the Eburones and the Condrusi, giving Caesar an excuse for new military intervention in the area. He pursued them back over the Rhine where they were helped by theSicambri. Later, Caesar himself encouraged the Sicambri to cross the Rhine into the territory of the Eburones, seeking to plunder the lands of the people whose fortress he had just taken.[6] These tribes who crossed the Rhine and became part of RomanGermania Inferior were themselves apparently heavily influenced by Gaulish culture, some using Gaulish personal names or Gaulish tribal names.
Later, as the area became part of theRoman Empire, some of these tribes from over the Rhine, including the Sicambri and the Ubii, were forced byTiberius to settle in the northeast of Gaul. Romanized provinces with tribal names developed from the merging of incoming groups with people who had lived there before Caesar. This is a likely origin of both the Tungri and the other tribal groups of Germania Inferior.[7] The Romancivitas of the Tungri is smaller than the area which Caesar ascribed to the earlierGermani Cisrhenani, with the areas near the Rhine governed as a military frontier, and populated at least partly with soldiers and immigrants from the other side of the Rhine.
The exact history of each of the populations is not known although the areas nearer to the Rhine appear to have had larger-scale immigration, and the Tungri were suspected, according to Tacitus, of having been less influenced in their makeup by that process.[8] Smaller tribal groups such as the Condrusi (one of the Germani tribes mentioned by Caesar) and the Texuandri (perhaps the same as the Eburones) continued to exist as recognized groups for the administrative purpose of mustering troops.[9] To the north of the Tungri, in theRhine-Maas delta, were theBatavians, a similarly new formation, apparently made up of incomingChatti, with a possible contribution from the Eburones. To the northeast of the Tungri, near the Rhine, were the Cugerni, who are thought to be Sicambri, and then, around the area ofCologne andBonn, theUbii were settled.[10][11]
Pliny the Elder is the first writer to mention the Tungri as citizens of RomanGallia Belgica. In hisNatural History, he notes that their region...[12]
...has a spring of great renown, which sparkles as it bursts forth with bubbles innumerable, and has a certainferruginous taste, only to be perceived after it has been drunk. This water is stronglypurgative, is curative oftertian fevers, and dispersesurinary calculi: upon the application of fire it assumes a turbid appearance, and finally turns red
It has been suggested that this refers to the well-known waters ofSpa in the province ofLiège,[13] or else to waters found at Tongeren, which are suitably iron-bearing, and today referred to as the "Plinius bron".[14]
Apart from Tongeren the capital, both Pliny andPtolemy'sGeography are unclear concerning the exact boundaries of the Tungri's country but are understood as placing it east of theScheldt, and to the north of theArduenna Silva (Forest of Ardennes), somewhere near the middle and lower valley of theMosa (Meuse).
The Eburones had a fort calledAtuatuca (orAduatuca). Caesar reported that the wordAtuatuca meant a fortress. Under Roman occupation, a new cityAduatuca Tungrorum, modernTongeren in theLimburg province of Belgium, became the capital city of the region.
Under the Romans, the Tungricivitas was first a part ofGallia Belgica, and later split out to join the territories of theUbii to the southeast, and theCugerni, who are generally equated with being descended from the Sicambri, to the northeast, and become part ofGermania Inferior, which still later evolved intoGermania Secunda. In other directions, their neighbours in Roman times were theBelgicNervii on the west and theRemi andTreveri to the south, all of which were tribes who had been in those regions since before Caesar's campaign.[15]
Tacitus in hisHistories[16] notes twocohorts of Tungri in thecivil war of 69 AD.
The Tungri were mentioned in theNotitia Dignitatum, an early fifth-century document, in which everymilitary and governmental post in the lateRoman Empire was transcribed. The document mentions the Tribune of the FirstCohort of Tungri[17] stationed atVercovicium (Housesteads, Northumberland) onHadrian's Wall where it was located from 205/208.[18]
The 2nd Cohort of Tungrians, also amilliaria equitata (nominally 1000 men strong), was stationed atBirrens fort from 159 to about 184.
Cohors IV Tungrorum was based inAbusina during the second century.[19]
Tausius, the Roman soldier who killed the emperorPertinax, was a Tungrian.
The goddessVihansa (probably meaning 'holy deity') is mentioned on a bronze tablet found near Tongeren and engraved by a centurion dedicating his shield and spear to the deity.[20][21]
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