For around 450 years, from around 55 BC to around 410 AD, the southern part of the Netherlands was integrated into the Roman Empire. During this time the Romans in the Netherlands had an enormous influence on the lives and culture of the people who lived in the Netherlands at the time and (indirectly) on the generations that followed.[1]
See main article: Frisii and Gallic wars. During the Gallic Wars, the area south and west of the Rhine was conquered by Roman forces under Julius Caesar in a series of campaigns from 57 BC to 53 BC.[2] The approximately 450 years of Roman rule that followed would profoundly change the Netherlands.
Starting about 15 BC, the Rhine in the Netherlands came to be defended by the Lower Limes Germanicus. After a series of military actions, the Rhine became fixed around 12 AD as Rome's northern frontier on the European mainland. A number of towns and developments would arise along this line. Perhaps the most evocative Roman ruin is the mysterious Brittenburg, which emerged from the sand at the beach in Katwijk several centuries ago, only to be buried again. These ruins were part of Lugdunum Batavorum.
The area to the south would be integrated into the Roman Empire. At first part of Gallia Belgica, this area became part of the province of Germania Inferior. The tribes already within, or relocated to, this area became part of the Roman Empire.
The area to the north of the Rhine, inhabited by the Frisii and the Chauci, remained outside Roman rule but not its presence and control. The Frisii were initially "won over" by Drusus, suggesting a Roman suzerainty was imposed by Augustus on the coastal areas north of the Rhine river.[3] Over the course of time the Frisii would provide Roman auxiliaries through treaty obligations, but the tribe would also fight the Romans in concert with other Germanic tribes (finally, in 296 the Frisii were relocated in Flanders and disappeared from recorded history).
During the Gallic Wars, the Belgic area south of the Oude Rijn and west of the Rhine was conquered by Roman forces under Julius Caesar in a series of campaigns from 57 BC to 53 BC.[4] He established the principle that the Rhine, which runs through the Netherlands, defined a natural boundary between the Gauls and Germanic peoples. But the Rhine was not a strong border, and he made it clear that there was a part of Belgic Gaul where many of the local tribes were "Germani cisrhenani", or in other cases, of mixed origin. The approximately 450 years of Roman rule that followed would profoundly change the area that would become the Netherlands. Very often this involved large-scale conflict with the "free Germans" over the Rhine.
When Caesar arrived, various tribes were located in the area of the Netherlands, residing in the inhabitable higher parts, especially in the east and south. These illiterate tribes did not leave behind written records, so all the information known about them during this pre-Roman period is based on what the Romans and Greeks wrote about them. Julius Caesar himself, in his commentary Commentarii de Bello Gallico wrote in detail only about the southern area which he conquered. Two or three tribes who he described as living in what is now the Netherlands were:
In the delta itself, Caesar makes a passing comment about the Insula Batavorum ("Island of the Batavi") in the Rhine river, without discussing who lived there. Later, in imperial times, a tribe called the Batavi became very important in this region. The island's easternmost point is at a split in the Rhine, one arm being the Waal the other the Lower Rhine/Old Rhine (hence the Latin name [5] Much later Tacitus wrote that they had originally been a tribe of the Chatti, a tribe in Germany never mentioned by Caesar.[6] However, archaeologists find evidence of continuity, and suggest that the Chattic group may have been a small group, moving into a pre-existing (and possibly non-Germanic) people, who could even have been part of a known group such as the Eburones.[7]
Other tribes who eventually inhabited the "Gaulish" islands in the delta during Roman times are mentioned by Pliny the Elder:[8]
As mentioned above, the northern Netherlands, above the Old Rhine, was dominated by the Frisii, with perhaps a small penetration of Chauci. While this area was not officially part of the empire for any long periods, military conscription and other impositions were made for long periods upon the Frisii. Several smaller tribes are known from the eastern Netherlands, north of the Rhine:
In the south of the Netherlands the Texuandri inhabited most of North Brabant. The modern province of Limburg, with the Maas running through it, appears to have been inhabited by (from north to south) the Baetasii, the Catualini, the Sunuci and the Tungri.
See main article: Revolt of the Batavi. About 38 BC, a pro-Roman faction of the Chatti (a Germanic tribe located east of the Rhine) was settled by Agrippa in an area south of the Rhine, now thought to be the Betuwe area. They took on the name of the people already living there—the Batavians.[2]
The relationship with the original inhabitants was on the whole quite good; many Batavians and Cananefates even served in the Roman cavalry. Batavian culture was influenced by the Roman one, resulting among other things in Roman-style temples such as the one in Elst, dedicated to local gods. Trade also flourished: the salt used in the Roman empire was won from the North Sea and remains are found across the whole Roman empire.
However, this did not prevent the Batavian rebellion of 69 AD, a very successful revolt under the leadership of Batavian Gaius Julius Civilis. Forty castella were burnt down because the Romans violated the rights of the Batavian leaders by taking young Batavians as their slaves.[9]
Other Roman soldiers (like those in Xanten and the auxiliary troops of Batavians and Cananefates from the legions of Vitellius) joined the revolt, which split the northern part of the Roman army. In April 70, Vespasianus sent a few legions to stop the revolt. Their commander, Petilius Cerialis, eventually defeated the Batavians and started negotiations with Julius Civilis on his home ground, somewhere between the Waal and the Maas near Noviomagus (Nijmegen) or - as the Batavians probably called it - Batavodurum.[10]
The Batavi may have merged into the Salian Frankish community, who first appear in the written record in the third century as a group who had been living in Batavia before being pushed southwards out of the delta.[11]
During their stay in Germania Inferior, the Romans established a number of towns and smaller settlements in the Netherlands and reinforced the Limes Germanicus with military forts. More notable towns include Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum (modern Nijmegen) and Forum Hadriani (Voorburg).
A) Forum Hadriani, a.k.a. Aellium Cananefatum (modern Voorburg)
B) Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum, a.k.a. Colonia Ulpia Noviomagus, (modern Nijmegen)
C) Batavorum (in modern Nijmegen)
D) Colonia Ulpia Trajana (in modern Xanten, Germany)
E) Coriovallum (in modern Heerlen)
F) Nigrum Pullum (modern Zwammerdam)
G) settlement of an unknown name on the Leidsche Rijn
H) Haltna (modern Houten)
I) settlement of an unknown name (modern Ermelo)
J) settlement of an unknown name (modern Tiel)
K) Roman temples (modern Elst, Overbetuwe)
L) Temple possibly devoted to Hercules Magusannus (modern Kessel, North Brabant)
M) Temple (at an area called "Dutch; Flemish: De lithse Ham" near Maren-Kessel, now part of Oss)[12]
N) Ceuclum (modern Cuijk)
O) Roman era tombs 2 km south of town center (modern Esch)
P) Trajectum ad Mosam, also known as Mosae Trajectum, (modern Maastricht)
Not marked on the map: a possible fort in modern Venlo and a settlement called Catualium[13] near modern Roermond
In the 3rd century the Franks, a warrior Germanic tribe, started to appear in the Netherlands. Their attacks happened in a time period with a catastrophic sea invasion of the area.
Modern scholars of the Migration Period are in agreement that the Frankish identity emerged at the first half of the 3rd century out of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups, including the Salii, Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri, Ubii, Batavi and the Tungri, who inhabited the lower and middle Rhine valley between the Zuyderzee and the river Lahn and extended eastwards as far as the Weser, but were the most densely settled around the IJssel and between the Lippe and the Sieg. The Frankish confederation probably began to coalesce in the 210s.[14]
The Franks eventually were divided into two groups: the Ripuarian Franks (Latin: Ripuari), who were the Franks that lived along the middle-Rhine River during the Roman Era, and the Salians, who probably originated in the Salland in Overijssel, before pressure from the Saxons then forced them to move into the empire in the 4th century and became the Salian Franks.
Franks appear in Roman texts as both allies and enemies (laeti or dediticii). In 288 the emperor Maximian defeated the Salian Franks, Chamavi, Frisians and other Germans living along the Rhine and moved them to Germania inferior to provide manpower and prevent the settlement of other Germanic tribes.[15] [16] In 292 Constantius defeated the Franks who had settled at the mouth of the Rhine. These were moved to the nearby region of Toxandria.
They were forced by the confederation of the Saxons from the east to move over the Rhine into Roman territory in the fourth century. Around 310, the Franks had the region of the Scheldt river (present day west Flanders and southwest Netherlands) under control, and were raiding the Channel, disrupting transportation to Britain. Roman forces pacified the region, but did not expel the Franks, who continued to be feared as pirates along the shores at least until the time of Julian the Apostate (358), when Salian Franks were granted to settle as foederati in Toxandria, according to Ammianus Marcellinus.[17]
At the beginning of the 5th century, the Franks became the most important ethnic group in the region, just before the end of the Western Roman Empire.