Marsaci
| Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R) |
Marsaci or Marsacii were a tribe in Roman imperial times, who lived within the area of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, under Roman domination.
Variants
Jat clans
History
The only relatively clear source concerning the location of this tribe is Pliny the Elder's Natural History. They are in a list of tribes living in the "Gaulish islands" within the river delta region between different mouths of the Rhine. First he mentions the islands of the Batavians and the Cananefates, and then he gives the list of people who he says are stretched out along 100 Roman miles, between the mouths Helinius and Flevus.[1]
Possibly related to this same tribe, he also mentions "Oromarsaci", possibly referring to an "ora" (boundary) of the Marsaci, near modern Boulognes-sur-mer, so they may have stretched down the Flemish coast.[2]
The Helinius (or Helinium) is understood to have been the main mouth of the Meuse, where the main water of the southern branch of the Rhine, the Waal (Latin Vacalis) also discharged. Flevus (or Flevum) was a Roman fortification on the Ocean, north of the Rhine, mentioned by Tacitus, and equated today with Velsen.[3] Although the details are no longer clear there was apparently a northerly outlet of the Rhine here, north of the main Old Rhine.[4] But the term Flevo was also used by Pomponius Mela to refer to the fresh water lakes which were in the area of the modern Zuiderzee, which Mela specifically says that the Rhine fed into, perhaps through an ancient version of the Vecht, or the IJssel. So the Rhine mouth mentioned by Pliny might have been a discharge into a lake, or perhaps water running to Flevum on the coast may have arrived from the Rhine, via the lakes.[5]
External links
See also
References
- ↑ "Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED., CHAP. 29. (15.)—NINETY-SIX ISLANDS OF THE GALLIC OCEAN". perseus.tufts.edu.
- ↑ Pliny the Elder. The Natural History (eds. John Bostock, H. T. Riley, Esq., B.A. 1855) Book IV. An account of countries, nations, seas, towns, havens, mountains, rivers, distances, and peoples who now exist of formerly existed. Chap. 31. (17.) - Gallia Belgica. In English, or in Latin: "a scaldi incolunt texero texuandri pluribus nominibus, dein menapi, morini ora marsacis iuncti pago qui gesoriacus vocatur".
- ↑ "Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, BOOK IV, chapter 72". perseus.tufts.edu.
- ↑ Germania By Cornelius Tacitus, 4.72
- ↑ Smith, William (1854), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
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