The Belgae ( , ) were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel, the west bank of the Rhine, and the northern bank of the river Seine, from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth by Julius Caesar in his account of his wars in Gaul. Some peoples in southern Britain were also called Belgae and had apparently moved from the continent. T. F. O'Rahilly believed that some had moved further west and he equated them with the Fir Bolg in Ireland. The Roman province of Gallia Belgica was named after the continental Belgae. The term continued to be used in the region until the present day and is reflected in the name of the modern country of Belgium.
Etymology The consensus among linguists is that the ethnic name Belgae probably comes from the Proto-Celtic root *belg- or *bolg- meaning "to swell (particularly with anger/battle fury/etc.)", cognate with the Dutch adjective gebelgd "very angry" (weak perfect participle of the verb belgen "to become angry") and verbolgen "being angry" (strong perfect participle of obsolete verbelgen "to make angry"), as well as the Old English verb belgan, "to be angry" (from Proto-Germanic *balgiz), derived ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhelgh- ("to swell, bulge, billow"). Thus, a Proto-Celtic ethnic name *Bolgoi could be interpreted as "the people who swell (particularly with anger/battle fury)".Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie (ZcP). Volume 44, Issue 1, Pages 67–69, ISSN (Online) 1865-889X, ISSN (Print) 0084-5302, //1991Koch, John. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO 2006, p. 198.Pokorny, Julius. Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959), Bern - Muenchen - Francke, pp. 125-126.Maier, Bernhard. Dictionary of Celtic religion and culture, Boydell & Brewer, 1997, p. 272.Pokorny, Julius, The pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland, Celtic, DIAS, 1960 (reprint 1983), p. 231.
Origins of the Belgae In Julius Caesar's Latin terminology, was a geographical region comprising territories of the Bellovaci, Ambiani, Atrebates, and Veromandui.Andrew W. Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain: Revisiting Cross-Channel Contacts in the Later Iron Age," in ΕΥΔΑΙΜΩΝ: Studies in Honor of Jan Bouzek, Opera Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 18 (2018), p. 336, with reference to Caesar BG 5.12, 5. 24–25, 8.46, 8.49, 8.43, and citing S. Fichtl, Les Gaulois de Nord de la Gaule (Paris, 1994), pp. 4–5. These four communities are widely thought to have been the original Belgae in Gaul.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 336, citing C.F.C. Hawkes and G.G. Dunning, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain," Archaeological Journal 87 (1931), 241–242; Hawkes, "New Thoughts on the Belgae," Antiquity 33 (1968) 170–182; R. Hachmann, "The problem of the Belgae seen from the continent," Bulletin of the London Institute of Archaeology 13 (1976) 117–138; N. Roymans, Tribal Societies in North Gaul: An Anthropological Perspective (Amsterdam, 1990), p. 13; Fichtl, Les Gaulois de Nord de la Gaule (1994), passim; C. Haselgrove, "The age of enclosure: Later Iron Age settlement and society in northern France," in The Later Iron Age in Britain and Beyond (Oxford, 2007), pp. 492–493.
Caesar also defined the Belgae in a broader sense when he described them as inhabiting the northernmost of the three major divisions of Gaul at the time of his conquests (58–51 BC), along with by the Aquitani in the southwest, the Gauls in the biggest central part, who in their own language were called Celtae. Each of these three parts, he wrote, differed in terms of customs, laws and language. He noted that the Belgae, were "the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war".Julius Caesar, Gallic War, trans. Devitte, I.1. Ancient sources such as Caesar are not always clear about the things used to define ethnicity today. While Caesar or his sources described the Belgae as distinctly different from the Gauls, Strabo stated that the differences between the Celts (Gauls) and Belgae in countenance, language, politics and way of life was a small one, unlike the difference between the Aquitanians and Celts.Strabo Geography 4.1 The fact that the Belgae were living in Gaul means that in one sense they were Gauls. This may be Caesar's meaning when he says "The Belgae have the same method of attacking a fortress as the rest of the Gauls".Caesar, The Conquest of Gaul, trans. S. A. Handford, revised with a new introduction by Jane F. Gardner (Penguin Books 1982), II.1.6.
Inconsistently, Caesar in Bello Gallico, II.4 also contrasted them with Gauls: When Caesar inquired of them what states were in arms, how powerful they were, and what they could do, in war, he received the following information: that the greater part of the Belgae were sprung, from the Germans, and that having crossed the Rhine at an early period, they had settled there, on account of the fertility of the country, and had driven out the Gauls who inhabited those regions; and that they were the only people who, in the memory of our fathers [i.e. as far as we can remember], when all Gaul was overrun, had prevented the Teutones and the Cimbri from entering their territories; the effect of which was, that, from the recollection of those events, they assumed to themselves great authority and haughtiness in military matters.Julius Caesar, Gallic War, trans. Devitte, II.4
So Caesar used the word "Germani" in two ways. He described a group of tribes within the Belgic alliance as the "Germani", distinguishing them from their neighbours. The most important of these tribes in relation to Caesar's campaigns were the Eburones.Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 2.4 The other way he used the term was to refer to those related tribes east of the Rhine, who were not Celtic. So the Germani among the Belgae are called, based on Caesar's account, the Germani cisrhenani, to distinguish them from other Germani living east of the Rhine in what he understood to be their homeland. However, the later historian Tacitus was informed that the name Germania was known to have changed in meaning: The first people to cross the Rhine and oust the Gauls, those now called Tungri, were then called Germani. It was the name of this nation, not a race, that gradually came into general use. And so, to begin with, they were all called Germani after the conquerors because of the terror these inspired, and then, once the name had been devised, they adopted it themselves.Tacitus, Germania, trans. H. Mattingly, revised by J. B. Rives (Penguin Books 2009), 2.
In other words, Tacitus understood that the collective name Germani had first been used in Gaul, for a specific people there with connections beyond the Rhine, the Tungri being the name of the people living where the Eburones had lived in later imperial times, and was later adopted as a collective name for the non-Celtic peoples beyond the Rhine, the other, better-known way that Caesar used the term.
Culture The cultural cohesion of Belgium as Caesar sketched it is suggested by the maintaining of these borders, more or less, in administrative divisions (pagi) mapped out later by the Romans and still evident in the parishes of the Carolingian era.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 336, citing Fichtl, Les Peuples Gaulois: IIIer–Ier a.v. J.-C. (Paris, 2012). Archaeology suggests cultural continuities from the third to the first centuries BC within this subregion, inhabited in the time of Caesar by Bellovaci, Ambiani, Atrebates, and Veromandui.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 336, citing Haselgrove, "The age of enclosure," 493–494.
From 250 BC onward, the disposal of the dead was primarily through cremation, with some inhumation practiced.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 336, citing J.R. Collis, "Pre-Roman burial rites in north-western Europe," in Burial in the Roman World (London, 1977), 3–8; F. Malrain et al., "La protohistoire récente," Revue Archéologique 3/4 (2005) 145–146; Pinard et al., Actes e la table ronde. "Les Gestuelles Funéraires au Second Âge du Fer” tenue à Soissons les 6 et 7 novembre 2008, Revue Archéologique de Picardie 2009, pp. 30, 37. Ceramics and brooches are typical grave goods, while items of feasting appear in wealthier graves. The absence of weapons distinguishes these burials from the funerary practice of communities to the north and south.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 337, citing D. Bayard and N. Buchez, "Les tombes gauloises du Belgium, décourvertes récentes, in Les Celtes: Rites funeraires en Gaule du Nord entre le VIe et Ier siècle avant Jésus Christ. Recherches récentes en Wallonie (Namur, 1998), p. 61.
Around this same time, a characteristic form of enclosed sanctuary began to be built, and from the late 2nd through the mid 1st centuries BC, fortifications with a high earthen rampart and a wide, flat-bottomed ditch are concentrated there.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 336, citing J.-L. Brunaux, Les Gaulois: sanctuaires et rites (Paris, 1986) and Fichtl (1994), p. 20.
The coinage of the Belgae in Gaul shows commonalities in design and distribution patterns from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 336, citing S. Scheers, Traite de numismatique Celtique II: La Gaule Belgique (Paris, 1997), and C. Haselgrove, "The development of Iron Age coinage in Belgic Gaul," Numismatic Chronicle 159 (1999) 111–168.
The Belgae of this period do not appear to have drunk beer.Lamb, "The Belgae of Gaul and Britain", p. 337, citing Bayard and Buchez, "Les tombes gauloises du Belgium," p. 61.
Language
Caesar's book Commentarii de Bello Gallico begins: "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws." However, many modern scholars believe that the Belgae were a Celtic-speaking group.Koch, John T. 2006. Celtic culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. p.196Bell, Andrew Villen. 2000. The role of migration in the history of the Eurasian steppe. P.112Swan, Toril, Endre Mørck, Olaf Jansen Westvik. 1994. Language change and language structure: older Germanic languages in a Comparative Perspective. P.294Aldhouse-Green, Miranda Jane. 1995. The Celtic World. P.607. On the other hand, at least part of the Belgae may also have had significant cultural and historical connections to peoples east of the Rhine, including Germanic peoples, judging from archaeological, placename and textual evidence.Kipfer, Barbara Ann. 2007. Encyclopedic dictionary of archaeology. P.63King, Anthony. 1990. Roman Gaul and Germany. P.32 It has also been argued based on placename studies that the older language of the area, though apparently Indo-European, was not Celtic (see Nordwestblock) and that Celtic, though influential amongst the elite, might never have been the main language of the part of the Belgic area north of the Ardennes. page 44.M. Gysseling, Enkele Belgische leenwoorden in de toponymie, in Naamkunde 7 (1975), pp. 1-6. For example, Maurits Gysseling suggested that prior to Celtic and Germanic influences the Belgae may have comprised a distinct Indo-European branch, termed Belgian.