The Angrivarii (or ''Angrivari'') were a

Germanic people The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...

of the early

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, who lived in what is now northwest Germany near the middle of the Weser river. They were mentioned by the Roman authors

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

and

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

. They were part of the Germanic alliance of

Arminius Arminius (; 18/17 BC–AD 21) was a chieftain of the Germanic peoples, Germanic Cherusci tribe who is best known for commanding an alliance of Germanic tribes at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, in which three Roman legions under th ...

and his defeat of the Romans at the

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, also called the Varus Disaster or Varian Disaster () by Ancient Rome, Roman historians, was a major battle fought between an alliance of Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire between September 8 and 11, 9&nbs ...

in the 9th year of the common era. The Angrivarii lived in an area which was later called Angria (

Modern German New High German (NHG; ) is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language, starting in the 17th century. It is a loan translation of the German (). The most important characteristic of the period is the developme ...

"'") in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, which was a major part of the Carolingian

Duchy of Saxony The Duchy of Saxony () was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 CE and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 84 ...

. Both names probably derive from geographical terminology.

Location

In his ''

Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...

'' Tacitus described the Angrivarii and their western neighbours the Chamavi living east of the

Frisii The Frisii were an ancient tribe, who were neighbours of the Roman empire in the low-lying coastal region between the Rhine and the Ems (river), Ems rivers, in what what is now the northern Netherlands. They are not mentioned in Roman records af ...

who lived towards the

Rhine river The Rhine ( ) is one of the major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Swiss-Austrian border. From Lake Cons ...

which was the official border of the

, and behind them, further from the Romans, were "the Dulgubini and

Chasuarii The Chasuarii were an ancient Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe known from the reports of authors writing in the time of the Roman Empire. They lived somewhere to the east and north of the Rhine, near the modern river Hase, which feeds into the Ems ...

, and other tribes not equally famous". The Chasuarii probably lived near the Hase river, north of them, and the Dulgubini probably lived further east towards the

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

. North of all these peoples lived the Chauci, living along the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast in what is now Germany. Among the more detailed mentions of the Angrivarii which Tacitus makes in his ''

Annals Annals (, from , "year") are a concise history, historical record in which events are arranged chronology, chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction betw ...

'', he describes them also as neighbours to the powerful

Cherusci The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the plains and forests of northwestern Germania in the area of the Weser River and present-day Hanover during the first centuries BC and AD. Roman sources reported they considered thems ...

people, of

, who apparently lived east of them. They had built a dike to mark the boundary and this was west of the Weser. Tacitus also notes in his ''

'' that together with the Chamavi, the Angrivarii had invaded the lands formerly held by the Bructeri to their south, ''the Bructeri having been expelled and utterly destroyed by an alliance of neighboring peoples...''. The Bructeri had lived near the Ems and

Lippe Lippe () is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Herford, Minden-Lübbecke, Höxter, Paderborn, Gütersloh, and district-free Bielefeld, which forms the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe. ...

rivers, between the Rhine and Weser. This occurred after the

battle of the Teutoburg Forest The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, also called the Varus Disaster or Varian Disaster () by Ancient Rome, Roman historians, was a major battle fought between an alliance of Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire between September 8 and 11, 9&nbs ...

. Nevertheless, in the second century AD the geographer Ptolemy reported the Bructeri still living in the same approximate area, with a lesser Bructeri group living near the mouth of the Rhine near the Frisii, and a larger group just south of the coastal Chauci who lived between the Ems and Weser rivers. He places the Chamavi (Chamai) south of these Bructeri. He reports the Angrivarii east of the Weser river, just south of the "greater" Chauci who lived on the coast between Weser and Elbe. South of the Angrivarii he positions the

Langobardi The Lombards () or Longobards () were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 and 796) th ...

, and then the Dulgubnii. Unfortunately, Ptolemy's positioning of these peoples is confused in various places.

Name and etymology

The name appears earliest in the

Annales Annals are a concise form of historical writing which record events chronologically, year by year. The equivalent word in Latin and French is ''annales'', which is used untranslated in English in various contexts. List of works with titles contai ...

and ''

'' of

as Angrivarii. In Greek,

called them the Angriouarroi (), which transliterates into Latin Angrivari. In

post-classical history In Human history, world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 CE to 1500 CE, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically an ...

the name of the people had a number of different spellings in addition to the ones just mentioned. The name Angrivarii can be segmented Angri-varii meaning "the men of Engern", parallel to Ampsi-varii, "the men of the Ems". Engern, their region, is related to a word for meadows, as in modern German ''""'', and appears as a component in placenames around Germany.

Julius Pokorny Julius Pokorny (12 June 1887 – 8 April 1970) was an Austrian-Czech linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages and of Celtic studies, particularly of the Irish language, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian ...

derives the first element from an

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

root *ang-, "to bend, bow." From this root are also derived German ''Anger'', English dialect ''ing'', Danish ''eng'', Swedish ''äng'', Dutch ''eng''/''enk'', and many other forms in Germanic languages, all meaning "meadow, pasture." Cf. the similar element

Angeln Angeln (; ) is a peninsula on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of Jutland, in the Bay of Kiel. It forms part of Southern Schleswig, the northernmost region of Germany. The peninsula is bounded on the north by the Flensburg Firth, which separates it ...

. The second element ''-varii'' is most prolific among Germanic tribal names, commonly taken to mean "inhabitants of", "dwellers in". Its precise etymology remains unclear, but there is a general consensus that it cannot be derived from the PIE root ''*wih_xrós'', "man", surviving in English "''were''-wolf". Their geographical-based name is associated with the 8th century region called Angria (Angaria, Angeriensis, Aggerimensis and Engaria), which was one of four subdivisions of

Old Saxony Old Saxony was the homeland of the Saxons who fought the Frankish empire during the Early Middle Ages, until they conquered it and converted it into a Carolingian stem duchy in the 8th century, the Duchy of Saxony. Contemporary authors such a ...

(the others were Westfalahi and Ostfalahi and Nordalbingia). This region is now referred to in modern German as Engern, and it corresponds reasonably well with the area where the Angrivarii lived, comprising most of the country surrounding the middle Weser, including both flat land, as around

Minden Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the largest town in population between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district () of Minden-Lübbecke, situated in the cultural region ...

, and low hills ( Holzminden).

Ancient history

Although the Angrivarii receive brief mention in

(2.10) and the ''

'' of

(33), they appear mainly at several locations in ''

''. They were involved marginally in the wars fought by the talented Germanicus Caesar on behalf of his uncle

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...

, emperor of Rome, against the perpetrators of the massacre of three Roman legions in the

, the year 9. The wars began in the last years of the reign of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

, first emperor of Rome. Augustus died an old but respected man in the year 14 and was celebrated with much pomp and splendor. He left a document to be read to the senate posthumously, expressly forbidding extension of the empire beyond the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

. News of the will was welcomed by the Germans, thinking it gave them a free hand in the region. Germanicus found it necessary to pacify the border, which he did by a combination of

scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...

raids and offers of alliance with Rome - in short, stick and carrot. These raids also kept the army of the lower Rhine distracted from the possibility of mutiny, which had broken out on Augustus's death and only been quelled by concessions and executions. For punitive expeditions Germanicus used the Ems river, which flowed from the heart of the country occupied by the tribes that became the

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

. These were still under

, who had led the German confederation to the victory in 9. Unlike Arminius' native tribe, the

, the loyalty of the other tribes in the confederation was at best equivocal. The Angrivarii's defection or revolt (''defectio'') in the middle of Arminius's renewed operations against the Teutoburg Forest must have been secured in advance by Germanicus. Even if it was not, a cavalry attack soon brought the Angrivarii's capitulation. Soon afterwards, however, they are back in alliance with the Cherusci and opposition to the Romans, setting an ambush at the Cheruscan border, which was a high dirt embankment. They hid their cavalry in the woods and stationed their infantry on the reverse slope of the bank. The Romans had intelligence of the plan beforehand. They assaulted the embankment, preceding their assault with volleys from slings and spears thrown by machines. Driving the Angrivarii from the bank, they went on to pursue the cavalry in the woods. Once again the Angrivarii were totally routed. Once the Cherusci had been dealt with, Germanicus turned his attention to the Angrivarii. They, however, surrendered unconditionally to the general sent by Germanicus and placed themselves in the status of suppliants, begging for mercy, which Germanicus granted. This later reaped dividends for the Angrivarii played a major role in securing the return of ships and men lost in a North Sea storm which scattered the Roman fleet upon the shore of hostile or neutral Germanic tribes. Finally, on May 26 of the year 17, Germanicus celebrated a triumph for his victory over lower Germany and his uncle sent him off to the east.Annales ii.41 Arminius died and the Angrivarii, the other west Germans and their successor tribes continued friendly towards Rome, providing it with elite troops and urban and palace police. Together with the

and the

Chatti The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis'') river. They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in ...

, the Angrivari belong to the three tribes that Tacitus particularly emphasizes in his account of the triumphal march of Germanicus in 17 AD:

References

External links

Tacitus' ''Germania''
{{Germanic peoples Early Germanic peoples Old Saxony Saxons History of Lower Saxony History of North Rhine-Westphalia Germania

Location

Name and etymology

Ancient history

See also

References

Further reading

External links