Batavians - Location, Military units

A tribe in the Rhine Delta in Roman times, known in The Netherlands as Bataven, Batavi, or Batavieren. They were allies (socii) of Rome, providing auxiliary troops. In 69AD, with other Germanic tribes, they revolted under Gaius Julius Civilis (known as Claudius Civilis), but were defeated by Quintus Petilius Cerealis, who restored the frontier, which lasted until the arrival of the Salic Francs c.300AD, who absorbed the original inhabitants. The Batavians were regarded as the original Dutch settlers. The name was revived as Batavia (now Jakarta) for the capital of the former Netherlands East Indies.

The Batavians (also known by Batavii, or Batavi) were a Germanic tribe, originally part of the Chatti, reported by Tacitus to have lived around the Rhine delta, in the area that is currently the Netherlands, "an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the ocean in front, and by the river Rhine in the rear and on either side" (Tacitus, Historiae iv).

Finds of wooden tablets suggests at least some of them were literate.

The Batavians falsely became regarded as the eponymous ancestors of the Dutch people.

Location

The Batavians were mentioned by Julius Caesar in his commentary Gallic Wars, as living on an island formed by the Rhine River after it splits, one arm being the Waal the other the Old Rhine.

Archeological evidence suggests they lived in small villages, composed of 6 to 12 houses in the very fertile lands between the rivers, and lived by agriculture and cattle-raising .

Military units

The first Batavian commander we know of is named Chariovalda, who lead a charge across the Visurgin (Weser) against the Cherusci lead by Arminius during the campaigns of Germanicus in Germania Transrhenanum (Annales II, 11).

Tacitus (De origine et situ Germanorum XXIX) described the Batavians as the bravest of the tribes of the area, hardened in the German wars, with cohorts under their own commanders transferred to Britannia. They retained the honour of the ancient association with the Romans, not required to pay tribute or taxes and used by the Romans only for war: "They furnished to the Empire nothing but men and arms", Tacitus remarked. Dio Cassius describes this surprise tactic employed by Aulus Plautius against the "barbarians"—the British Celts— at the battle of the River Medway, 43:

The barbarians thought that Romans would not be able to cross it without a bridge, and consequently bivouacked in rather careless fashion on the opposite bank; However, the Germans swam across again and some others got over by a bridge a little way up-stream, after which they assailed the barbarians from several sides at once and cut down many of them. (Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 60:20)

The Batavians also provided a contingent for the Emperor's Imperial Horse Guard.

Numerous altars and tombstones of the Batavii, dating to the 2nd century and 3rd century, have been found along Hadrian's Wall, notably at Castlecary and Carrawburgh, Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania and Austria.

Batavian Rebellion

Main article: Batavian rebellion.

Despite the alliance, one of the high-ranking Batavii, Julius Paullus, to give him his Roman name, was executed by Fonteius Capito on a false charge of rebellion. though he was acquitted by Galba, he was retained at Rome, and when he returned to his kin in the year of upheaval in the Roman Empire, 69, he headed a Batavian rebellion which was defeated by the Romans the following year, a narrative told in great detail in Tacitus' History, book iv, although, unfurtunately, the narrative breaks off abruptly at the climax.