Cativolcus or Catuvolcus (died 53 BC) was king of half of the country of the Eburones, a people between the

Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...

and

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 ...

rivers, united with Ambiorix, the other king, in the insurrection against the Romans in 54 BC; but when

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

in the next year proceeded to devastate the territories of the Eburones, Cativolcus, who was advanced in age and unable to endure the labours of war and flight, poisoned himself with a yew, after imprecating curses upon Ambiorix.

Name

The

Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...

personal name ''Catu-uolcos'' ('war-falcon, battle-hawk') is a compound formed with the stem ''catu-'' ('battle') attached to ''uolcos'' ('falcon, hawk'). The Eburonian name has an exact parallel in the Middle Welsh ''cadwalch'' ('hero, champion, warrior'), both stemming from a

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed throu ...

form *''katuwolkos''. It is cognate with the

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

'' Volcae.''

References

Bibliography

* * * 53 BC deaths Barbarian people of the Gallic Wars Belgae Celtic warriors 1st-century BC Gaulish tribal chiefs 1st-century BC monarchs in Europe Early Germanic warriors Year of birth unknown {{Europe-hist-stub