- Usipi
The Usipi were a German tribe whose territory lay on the right bank of the
Rhine (and thus outside theRoman Empire , inGermania ), probably between the valleys of theLahn andSieg . They are mentioned inPtolemy 's "Geography" and inTacitus ' "Germania" (chapter 32), where they are described as one of the neighbouring tribes to theChatti and theTencteri during the 1st century AD.They are most notoriously recorded in Tacitus' "Agricola" (chapter 28), where he recounts how a
cohort drafted into theRoman army mutinied whilst on campaign in northern Britain (presumably on the west coast) with his father-in-law, the general Gn. Iulius Agricola (probably in AD82 , although the chronology is disputed). They killed thecenturion and regular Roman soldiers based with them for training purposes, then stole three ships and sailed round the northern end of Britain, their hardships including being driven tocannibalism by shortage of food. They finally made landfall in the territory of theSuebi , where some were captured by that tribe. Others were caught by theFrisii and a few survivors were sold into slavery to tell their tale.Dio Cassius tells a similar (if rather simplified) story but places the events a few years earlier.It is likely that they were synonymous with the
Usipetes , a tribe attacked byJulius Caesar in55 BC.
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