TheMenapii were aBelgic tribe dwelling near theNorth Sea, around present-dayCassel, during theIron Age and theRoman period.
The Menapii were persistent opponents ofJulius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, resisting until 54 BC. They were part of the Belgic confederacy defeated by Caesar in 57 BC, contributing 9,000 men.[1] The following year they sided with theVeneti against Caesar.[2] Caesar was again victorious, but the Menapii and theMorini refused to make peace and continued to fight against him. They withdrew into the forests and swamps and conducted ahit-and-run campaign. Caesar responded by cutting down the forests, seizing their cattle and burning their settlements, but this was interrupted by heavy rain and the onset of winter, and the Menapii and Morini withdrew further into the forests.[3] In 55 BC the Menapii tried to resist aGermanic incursion across theRhine, but were defeated.[4] Later that year, while Caesar made his firstexpedition to Britain, he sent two of hislegates and the majority of his army to the territories of the Menapii and Morini to keep them under control.[5] Once again, they retired to the woods, and the Romans burned their crops and settlements.[6] The Menapii joined the revolt led byAmbiorix in 54 BC. Caesar says that they, alone of all the tribes of Gaul, had never sent ambassadors to him to discuss terms of peace, and had ties of hospitality with Ambiorix. For that reason he decided to lead fivelegions against them. A renewed campaign of devastation finally forced them to submit, and Caesar placed his allyCommius of theAtrebates in control of them.[7]
Acohort of Menapianauxiliaries is attested by inscriptions dating to the 2nd century inBritain.[8]Carausius, the 3rd century commander of the Roman fleet who declared himself emperor of Britain and northern Gaul, was a Menapian, born inBatavia.[9] A legion called the Menapii Seniores is mentioned in theNotitia Dignitatum, a 5th-century register of Roman government positions and military commands.[10]
They are mentioned asMenapii byCaesar (mid-1st c. BC) andOrosius (early 5th c. AD),[11]Menápioi (Μενάπιοι;var. Μονάπιοι, Μενάσπιοι) byStrabo (early 1st c. AD) andPtolemy (2nd c. AD),[12] asMenapi byPliny (1st c. AD) and theNotitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD),[13] and under theaccusative formsMenapios byTacitus (early 2nd c. AD) andMenapíous (Μεναπίους) byCassius Dio (3rd c. AD).[14][15]
TheGaulishethnonymMenapii has beenphonetically compared withManapii, the name of a tribe from southeastern Ireland mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. These tribal names may ultimately derive from aProto-Celtic form reconstructed as *Menakwī or *Manakwī,[16][17] whose meaning remains uncertain, perhaps the 'mountain people' or the 'high-living people' (from the root *mon- 'mountain'; cf.MWelshmynydd,OBret.monid,OCo.menit), or from the root *men- ('think, remember'; cf.OIr.muinithir 'think', Welshmynnu 'wish').[18][15]
The city ofCassel, attested onPeutinger's Tabula asCastellum Menapiorum (Cassello in 840–75,Cassel in 1110), is indirectly named after the tribe.[19][15]
According to descriptions in such authors asStrabo,Caesar,Pliny the Elder andPtolemy their territory had stretched northwards to the mouth of theRhine in the north, but more lastingly it stretched along the west of theScheldt river. In later geographical terms this territory corresponds roughly to the modern Belgian coast, theBelgian provinces ofEast andWest Flanders. It also extended into neighbouring France and the river deltas of theSouthern Netherlands.
To the north and east of the Menapii lay theRhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. In the time of Caesar, the Menapii had settlements throughout this region and as far as the Rhine in present-day Germany, or at least its branch, the Waal.[20] During Roman times these islands were under the frontier province ofGermania Inferior, and inhabited partly by various groups of people who had moved there under Roman rule.Pliny the elder lists the people in these "Gallic Islands" asBatavi andCanninefates on the largest island,Frisii and theChauci whose main lands were to the north of the deltas, and theFrisiavones,Sturii, andMarsacii.[21] Of these last three, the Marsaci appear to be mentioned in another place by Pliny as having a presence on the coast south of the delta, neighbouring the Menapii, within Gaul itself.[22] The Frisiavones are also mentioned within the listing for Belgian Gaul, but probably therefore lived in the part of the delta south of the Batavi, northeast of the Menapii. In one inscription, fromBulla Regia, theTungri, Batavians and Frisiavones are grouped together, apparently confirming that the Frisiavones lived inland. It is suggested that theMarsaci and theSturii could be "pagi" belonging to thecivitas of either the Frisiavones or the Menapii.[23] South of the delta, east of the river Scheldt from the Menapii, and therefore apparently south of the Frisiavones, Pliny mentions theToxandri, in a position apparently on the northern edge of Gaul. It is known that the Toxandri were associated with thecivitates of both the Nervii and the Tungri, so they presumably had a presence in both.
While in Pliny the Menapii do not stretch beyond theScheldt, inStrabo's 1st-centuryGeographica, they are situated further away than theNervii and on both sides of the Rhine near its outlets to the sea, apparently not far from the GermanicSigambri. Apparently following Caesar he said that they "dwell amongst marshes and forests, not lofty, but consisting of dense and thorny wood".[24] They are also referred to inPtolemy's 2nd centuryGeographia, situated "above" theNervii, and near the Meuse river.[25]
While these authors make it clear that the Menapii still lay north of the Nervii in Roman times, it is not clear if they still bordered directly upon the former territory of theEburones, as they had been in Caesar's time, and which in imperial times was within theCivitas Tungrorum, orcivitas of theTungri. In any case as mentioned above they bordered in Roman times upon theToxandrians, who apparently lived in the north of the lands of the Nervii and Tungri.[23]
South of the Menapii were theAtrebates in Artois, and south-west along the coast were theMorini. The boundary with the Morini in classical times appears to have been the riverAa.[26]
In the later Roman Empire,The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites reports that "Cassel was superseded as capital of the Menapii by Tournai after Gaul was reorganized underDiocletian andConstantine the Great. Thecivitas Menapiorum became thecivitas Turnencensium."[27] By medieval times, when these Roman districts evolved into medieval Roman Catholic dioceses, Cassel had in fact become part of the diocese ofThérouanne, which had been thecivitas of the Morini.[26]
Theircivitas, or administrative capital, under theRoman Empire wasCassel in northern France, and later this was moved nearer to a river inTournai, in present-day Belgium, on the Scheldt. Both of these are nearThérouanne, which was thecivitas of the neighbouringMorini tribe, and indeed in the Middle Ages Cassel became part of theCatholicDiocese of Thérouanne. Cassel was therefore in the southern extreme of the Menapii lands. A pattern of placing Roman tribal capitals in the south is also found in the neighbouring Belgian tribal states, of theNervii andTungri. The positions of such Roman tribal capitals frequently didn't correspond to the centre of a tribe's territory in pre-Roman political geography.[28] Similarly, in those neighbouring regions, the centre of Roman civilization was typically moved further south, and on to a major river, in late Roman times, after the area was threatened by Frankish tribes from outside the empire.
The economic activity of the Menapii was primally extraction of wool from sheep, and the fabrication of primitive cloths, and these were perfected while the Roman Reign in the Region. These cloths were one of the most rare things in terms of goods, because of the geographical location where they were made. Besides, these cloths were exported to Italy and other regions through the Rhine.[29]
