Batavians!

[Martin Wallgren]

Hi all!

Due to the recent relocation of our Cohort into the loving arms of the Batavian Nation I have been reading everything Peroni has thrown at me. One of the articles was about the Civilis Rebellion in the year of the four emperors and I found it really exiting. For example there is a hint of the internal power struggle in the Batavian society where Civilis is refusing to cooperate with another tribal leader who is forced to flee to the north.

Is this something we have more information on? I mean the different groups and party's of the Batavians. Does animosity between different leaders spill into the different cohorts? Are there any records of the system of recruiting into the the Cohorts of the Batavii?

I mean with such a large recruiting base as it seems to have been there is a fair chance for many different Groups/clans/tribes withing the Batavian Nation. Do we have any records of this or is it lost to the teeth of time.

Now that is seem to be a great surge into the Batavian aspect of Roman Reenactment I think such diversity of the tribe could be a very interesting thing to research and portray.

(EDIT: spellcheck)

[Praefectusclassis]

[size=75:ub2yn25t]Pssst, Martin, it's Batavian. [/size] :wink:

I mean with such a large recruiting base as it seems to have been there is a fair chance for many different Groups/clans/tribes withing the Batavarian Nation.

Errr, not very large at all in fact. A huge percentage of the Batavian male population served in Rome's armies. What is confusing in the Batavian revolt is that they actually managed to convince other Celtic/Germanic tribes along the northwestern border of the empire to revolt with them.

[Martin Wallgren]

[size=75:1y8qnfuf]Pssst, Martin, it's Batavian. [/size] :wink:

I mean with such a large recruiting base as it seems to have been there is a fair chance for many different Groups/clans/tribes withing the Batavarian Nation.

Errr, not very large at all in fact. A huge percentage of the Batavian male population served in Rome's armies. What is confusing in the Batavian revolt is that they actually managed to convince other Celtic/Germanic tribes along the northwestern border of the empire to revolt with them.

So how many are we talking about here! The population must have been more that 20 000 at least.

[Peroni]

So how many are we talking about here! The population must have been more that 20 000 at least.

A great book to read is

"Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power - Batavians in the early Roman Empire' Nico Roymans - Amsterdam University Press, Netherlands 2005.

It goes into great detail on the subject of the people of the Bet-auw.

"Riding for Caesar" Michael P. Speidel. 1994. Rheinland-Verlag goes into detail on the recruitment of the Batavi in the Germani Corpores Custodes and Equites Singulari Augusti horse guards too.

I have these graphs, I will email them to you Martin.

[lisa]

There's also an interesting recent article in the Journal of Roman Archaeology that delves into the issues of recruitment, population size

T. Derks and N. Roymans, 2006, "Returning auxiliary veterans: some methodological considerations" JRA 19: 121-135.

They reference another article (that probably comes up in the 2004 work, but is worth putting up front here):

I. Vossen, 2003 "The possibilities and limitations of demographic calculations in the Batavian area," in T. Grünewald and S. Seibel, eds, Kontinuität und Diskontinuität --Germania inferior am Beginn und am Ende der römischen Herrschaft (Ergänzungsbände zum RGA 35): 414-35.

[Peroni]

Lisa,

Do you have these articles in electronic format at all?

[lisa]

Peroni,

I'm afraid I don't. The copyright stipulations for the JRA are a little interesting--one is technically supposed to write to the editor to ask for permission to make a copy (although he generally will just post an offprint to the inquirer). The other is a chapter in a book. I thought they might be useful in that they are both quite short and for their availability through interlibrary loan.

sorry

[Peroni]

Thanks for the info.

I'll try your suggestion and see what happens!

[Peroni]

I tried your suggestion and contacted the Editor of JRA.

He was extremely helpful, and the article off-print with original illustrations is now winging accross the Atlantic!

Thanks for the suggestion Lisa.

[lisa]

He's one of my old professors--I've never met anyone quite so helpful or nice. I'm glad he upheld my opinion of him