The Treveri (Gaulish: *Trēueroi) were a Celtic–Germanic: "Die T[reverer] werden modern z. T. für Germ. gehalten, z. T. für Kelten. Meist nimmt man einen gemischten Charakter an." [In modern scholarship, the Treveri are regarded partly as Germanic and partly as Celtic. Most assume a mixed character] tribe of the Belgae group who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle in modern day Germany from around 150 BCE, if not earlier, until their displacement by the Franks. Their domain lay within the southern fringes of the Silva Arduenna (Ardennes Forest), a part of the vast Silva Carbonaria, in what are now Luxembourg, southeastern Belgium and western Germany; its centre was the city of Augusta Treverorum (Trier), to which the Treveri give their name. Although reported to have spoken a Celtic language, according to Tacitus they claimed Germanic descent.Tacitus writes, "The Treveri and Nervii are even eager in their claims of a German origin, thinking that the glory of this descent distinguishes them from the uniform level of Gallic effeminacy." Germania XXVIII. Their culture is noted for containing both Gallic and Germanic influences.
Although early adopters of Roman material culture, the Treveri had a chequered relationship with Roman power. Their leader Indutiomarus led them in revolt against Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars;Caesar, de Bello Gallico. much later, they played a key role in the Gaulish revolt during the Year of the Four Emperors.Tacitus, Histories. On the other hand, the Treveri supplied the Roman army with some of its most famous cavalry, and the city of Augusta Treverorum was home for a time to the family of Germanicus, including the future emperor Gaius (Caligula).Tacitus, Annales I:40–41. During the Crisis of the Third Century, the territory of the Treveri was overrun by Germanic Alamanni and Franks and later formed part of the Gallic Empire.
Under Constantine and his 4th-century successors, Augusta Treverorum became a large, favoured, rich and influential city that served as one of the capitals of the Roman Empire (together with Nicomedia (present-day İzmit, Turkey), Eboracum (present-day York, England), Mediolanum (present-day Milan, Italy) and Sirmium). During this period, Christianity began to succeed the imperial cult and the worship of Roman and Celtic deities as the favoured religion of the city. Such Christian luminaries as Ambrose, Jerome, Martin of Tours and Athanasius of Alexandria spent time in Augusta Treverorum.
Among the surviving legacies of the ancient Treveri are Moselle wine from Luxembourg and Germany (introduced during Roman times) and the many Roman monuments of Trier and its surroundings, including neighbouring Luxembourg., remarks, "Seeing all these ruins, still superb today, one senses the supreme effort of the Roman world at the gates of barbarism" (A voir aujourd’hui toutes ces ruines encore superbes, on sent le suprême effort du monde romain à la porte de la barbarie).
Three Roman roads, very important for their role in transregional trade and military deployment capability, went through the territory of the Treveri:
the first came from the south, connected Divodurum (Metz, France) and Ricciacus (Dalheim, Luxembourg) with Augusta Treverorum (Trier, Germany) and went further to the Rhine river in the northeast, the border of the Roman Empire the second came from the southwest and connected Durocortorum (Reims, France) with Andethana (Niederanven, Luxembourg) and Augusta Treverorum the third went through the Ardennes in present-day Belgium and Luxembourg and connected Durocortorum to the major city and garrison of Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne/Köln, Germany) on the Rhine river.
Name
Attestations They are mentioned as Treveri by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), Pliny (1st c. AD) and Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD),Caesar. Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 1:37Pliny. Naturalis Historia, 4:6Tacitus. Historiae, 1:53 Trēoúēroi (Τρηούηροι) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD),Strabo. Geōgraphiká, 4:3:4 Tríbēroi (Τρίβηροι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD),Ptolemy. Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis, 2:9:7 Trēouḗrōn (Τρηουήρων) by Cassius Dio (3rd c. AD),Cassius Dio. Rhōmaïkḕ Historía, XXXIX:47 Treuerorum (gen.) by Orosius (early 5th c. AD),Orosius. Historiae Adversus Paganos and as Triberorum in the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD).Notitia Dignitatum. oc 9, 37 and 38; 11, 35, 44, 77, s.v. Treveri and Col. Augusta Treverorum. The variant Treberi also appears in Pliny, and few highly deviant variant forms are also attested as Trēoũsgroi (Τρηου̃σγροι) in Strabo or Triḗrōn (Τριήρων) in Cassius Dio.
The first syllable is shown long and stressed (Trēverī) in Latin dictionaries,Collins Latin Dictionary Plus Grammar (1997). HarperCollins. .Perseus Word Study Tool. Morphological Analyses for Inflected Latin Words, thus giving the Classical Latin pronunciation .
Etymology The ethnonym Trēverī is a latinized form of Gaulish *Trēueroi (sing. Trēueros). It is generally viewed as referring to 'crossing a river' or to a 'flowing river'., s.v. Treveri and Col. Augusta Treverorum. Linguists Rudolf Thurneysen and Xavier Delamarre have proposed to interpret the name as trē-uer- ('ferrymen', 'those who [professionally] cross the river'), presumably because these people helped cross the Moselle river. It is composed of a suffix trē- (earlier *trei- 'through, across'; cf. Lat. trāns, Skt tiráh) attached to -uer- ('water, river'; cf. Skt vār, ON vari 'water').
This etymology is reinforced by the Old Irish cognate treóir (from *trē-uori-), meaning 'ford, place to cross a river' or 'guiding, leading'. The Treveri also had a special goddess called Ritona, which either means 'that of the ford' (from the stem ritu- 'ford') or 'that of the course' (from the homonym ritu- ~ rito- 'course'), and a temple dedicated to Uorioni Deo ('goddess of the watercourse').
The city of Trier, attested 1st c. AD as Treueris Augusta and on inscriptions as Augusta Trēvērorum (Treuiris in 1065), is named after the tribe.
Geography Territory
In the time of Julius Caesar their territory extended as far as the Rhine north of the Triboci;Caesar, B.G. III:11, IV:3, IV:10. across the Rhine from them lived the Ubii. Caesar mentions that the Segni and the Condrusi lived between the Treveri and the Eburones, and that the Condrusii and Eburones were clients of the Treveri.Caesar, B.G. IV:6, VI:32. Caesar bridged the Rhine in the territory of the Treveri.Strabo. IV:3, paragraph 3. They were bordered on the northwest by the Belgic Tungri (living where the Germani cisrhenani had lived in the time of Caesar and, according to Tacitus, the same people), on the southwest by the Remi, and on the north, beyond the Ardennes and Eifel, by the Eburones. To the south their neighbours were the Mediomatrici, Map 11: Sequana-Rhenus.
Later the Vangiones and Nemetes, whom ancient sources identify as Germanic, would settle to the east of the Treveri along the Rhine;Pliny IV.5 thereafter, Treveran territory in present-day Germany was probably similar to that which afterwards became the Diocese of Trier.George Long. "Treveri". In William Smith (ed., 1854) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. In addition to this area which is formed mainly by the northern part of the Moselle river valley and the neighbouring Eifel region, the Treveri populated also the area of the present-day Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the major part of the adjacent Belgian Province of Luxembourg. The Rhine valley was removed from Treveran authority with the formation of the province of Germania Superior in the 80s CE. The valley of the Ahr would have marked their northern boundary.
Settlements Colonia Augusta Treverorum (now Trier, Germany), established under Augustus ca. 17 BCE to guard a crossing of the Moselle, was the capital of their civitas under the Empire. There is strong evidence that the recently excavated oppidum on the Titelberg plateau in the extreme southwest of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was the Treveran capital during the 1st century BCE.Elizabeth Hamilton. The Celts and Urbanization – the Enduring Puzzle of the Oppida . Retrieved 21 November 2007. An important secondary centre was Orolaunum (now Arlon, capital of the Belgian Province of Luxembourg), which, in Edith Wightman's assessment, "became a kind of regional capital for the western Treveri", attaining "a degree of prosperity only otherwise reached by civitas capitals". The site of La Tranchée des Portes near Étalle, the largest of Belgium by its size (100 hectares) has not still revealed its rank. A recent study shows that it had already human presence around 4000 BCE. Other important pre-Roman centres were located at Martberg, Donnersberg, Wallendorf, Kastel-Staadt, and Otzenhausen.
The transfer of their activities to Trier followed the construction of Agrippa's road linking Trier with Reims which bypassed the Titelberg. During the Roman period, Trier became a Roman colony (in 16 BCE), and the provincial capital of Belgica itself. It was the frequent residence of a number of emperors. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Treveri were divided into five cantons centred respectively on the pre-Roman oppida of the Titelberg, Wallendorf, Kastel, Otzenhausen and the Martberg. Inscriptions from the Roman imperial period indicate that the civitas was divided into at least four pagi: the pagus Vilcias, the pagus Teucorias, the pagus Carucum extending north of Bitburg, and the pagus Ac[...] or Ag[...] (the inscription is incomplete). Wightman tentatively suggests that the pagus Vilcias might have been the western region around Arlon and Longuyon, and the pagus Teucorias the southern region around Tholey. Wightman considers it uncertain whether the Aresaces and Cairacates may originally have been pagi of the Treveri, but asserts that their territory – lying around Mogontiacum (Mainz) – "always showed particularly close cultural connections with Treveran territory". External to the Treveri, but subject to them as clients, were the Eburones and perhaps also the Caeroesi and Paemani., summarizing Caesar, B.G. IV:6, II:4.
The 4th-century poet Ausonius lived in Trier under the Gratian's patronage; he is most famous for his poem Mosella, evoking life and scenery along the Treveri's arterial river.
Language and ethnicity
Caesar is not explicit in De Bello Gallico about whether the Treveri are to be considered to belong to Gallia Celtica or Gallia Belgica, although the former hypothesis enjoys some favour. Writing about a century after Caesar, Pomponius Mela identifies the Treveri as the "most renowned" of the BelgaePomponius Mela (c. 43 AD). De Situ Orbis, III:2. The term quoted is "clarissimi". Of course, by this stage, the administrative boundaries of Gallia Belgica had been fixed and did include the Treveri. (not to be confounded with the modern-day Belgians).
According to the Roman consul Aulus Hirtius in the 1st century BCE, the Treveri differed little from Germanic peoples in their manner of life and "savage" behaviour.Aulus Hirtius. "Book VIII." In Caesar, B.G. VIII:25. The Treveri boasted of their Germanic origin, according to Tacitus, in order to distance themselves from "Gallic laziness" (inertia Gallorum). But Tacitus does not include them with the Vangiones, Triboci or Nemetes as "tribes unquestionably German". The presence of hall villas of the same type as found in indisputably Germanic territory in northern Germany, alongside Celtic types of villas, corroborates the idea that they had both Celtic and Germanic affinities.
Strabo says that their Nervian and Tribocan neighbours were Germanic peoples who by that point had settled on the left bank of the Rhine, while the Treveri are implied to be Gaulish.