Tungri

The Tungri were a tribe of Gaul and Germania. In a casual aside in "Germania" [The passage, whose text is sound, has occasioned a huge literature of commentary; "some of the problems stem from the fact that people have wanted this section to provide more abundant and precise information than it in fact does," J.B. Rives remarked (Ribes, translator, "Cornelius Tacitus: Germania" (Oxford University Press) 1999:117.] Tacitus remarks that "Germani" was the original tribal name of the "Tungri" with whom the Gauls were in contact; among the Gauls the term "Germani" came to be widely applied. The Tungri were among the first to cross the Rhine into Roman territory and settle among the Gauls, but Julius Caesar, the first to mention "Germani this side of the Rhine", does not mention them in his "Gallic Wars". Pliny the Elder is the first writer to mention the Tungri, [Pliny's Natural History, iv.106.] among the tribes in northeastern Gaul. At the time of Ptolemy's "Geography" they occupied the lands of the northern "Arduenna Silva" (Forest of Ardennes), along the lower valley of the "Mosa" (Meuse River). They were bordered to the north and east by Germanic tribes, but were bolstered by the Belgic Nervii on the west and by the Remi and Treveri to the south. Their tribal capital lay at "Atuatuca", modern Tongeren in the Limburg province of Belgium. The Tungri may have absorbed survivors of the shattered Eburones and other disbanded rebellious Gauls formerly in the territory of the Tungri.

Tacitus in his "Histories" [Tacitus, "Histories", ii.14.1 and ii.28.1.] notes two cohorts of Tungri in the civil war of 69 CE.

The Tungri were mentioned in the "Notitia Dignitatum", an early fifth-century document, in which was transcribed every military and governmental post in the late Roman Empire. The document mentions the Tribune of the First Cohort of Tungri stationed along Hadrian's Wall at Vercovicium (now known as Housesteads, Northumberland) for the purpose of interdicting northern tribesmen from seeking residence or criminal activity in settled Britannia; [Stephen Johnson (2004) "Hadrian's Wall", Sterling Publishing Company, Inc, 128 pages, ISBN 0713488409.] this tribune had been mentioned on four military "diplomata" dating to the beginning of the second century, as well as on altars and inscriptions, even on one of the Vindolanda writing tablets; these wooden tablets are some of the earliest surviving writing in Britain and were found in the Vindolanda fort ruins, immediately south of Hadrian's Wall. [ [http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=18177 C. Michael Hogan "Hadrian's Wall", ed. Andy Burnham, The Megalithic Portal (2007)] ] The cohort was split in Hadrianic times to form a Second Cohort of Tungri as well, both cohorts 1000 men strong.

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External links

* [http://www.roman-britain.org/military/coh1tun.htm Roman Britain website:] Cohors Primae Tvngrorvm