- Nabalia
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Nabalia is an ancient river in the Netherlands that has been mentioned once by the Roman historian Tacitus, in his book Historiae (5:26).
The river must have had some local, strategic or religious meaning, for in 70 AD Julius Civilis, leader of the Batavian rebellion against the Romans, choose this location to negotiate peace. A bridge was built, where the warring parties approached each other on both sides. Here the Roman captain Ceriales was attributed a speech by Tacitus, but here the report breaks off. For this reason, the conditions of the peace treaty are not known. However, the Batavians were still called an important tribe to the Romans in the book Germania, written later, also by Tacitus, in 98 AD. There are no indications to a hash retaliation and the Batavians continued in their privileged position of semi-independence in return for supplying elite troops to the Roman Empire.
The identification of this river has not been resolved, also due to considerable changes of the historic watercourses. The name does not give any clue and, obviously cognate to Dutch nevel (fog) and derived from proto-indoeuropean *nebh- (sky/cloud), could be a trivial synonym to any river. Proposed are the rivers Utrechtse Vecht and Hollandse IJssel.
External links
Categories:- Rivers of the Netherlands
- Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta
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